It's My Life
by Sulia Shincho
Summary: It's Relena's side of "For Rel" and "Get Rel" where she tells of her identity difficulties and her relationship with her friends while she's right in front of Heero.
1. To Paris

**It's My Life**

**Okay, as promised, here's ****Lena****'s side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

Adam had taken off at record speed and he cussed a bit each time the shots from Heero's firearm rang. "Your guard dog there had better not have hit my car, that's the last thing I need when selling this piece of junk," Adam joked, laughing a bit.

As Adam drove towards the Euro shuttle train, Relena had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to turn around, honestly.

"Hey," Adam nudged her shoulder, "are you okay? Or are you having second thoughts about this?" Relena knew that if she just said that she wanted to turn around Adam would and she would return to a life of hectic schedules and having to keep repeating herself to representatives all the time.

That wasn't what she wanted, she still had another year before she could officially retire and by that time she would have nothing to do. By doing this she could make a living for herself with the help of her friends and without-hopefully-interfering with their lives.

"No," she smiled, "no second thoughts whatsoever."

Grabbing hold of Relena's hand, Adam gave it a comforting squeeze. "Okay, cause I don't want to make you feel as though you feel obligated to do any of this," he assured her. "So if you want to me turn around and take you back, I will. Just give me the word."

Relena half wished that Adam hadn't said that but he wouldn't have been the Adam she knew and loved if he hadn't. It was tempting, it really was, but…_Do I really want this opportunity to slip through my fingers? If I go back I'll probably never have another chance to live my life the way I feel I should,_ Relena thought.

Squeezing Adam's hand a bit, she smiled, "No, I don't want to go back. I want to do this more than anything else."

There was Adam's trademark grin, that one that made everything seem alright, as though there was no wrong in the world. "Good," he nodded, kissing Relena's hand. "It's good to see you again girl, we've missed you."

"We? What do you mean by 'we'?"

The question was soon answered as Adam pulled along side the curb outside the Euro shuttle station.

In the past, the Euro shuttle would only run from London to France in the morning as a one day field trip then come back in the evening. Over the last nearly two hundred years though, that has changed. The Euro shuttle now runs like any other subway-type transportation, every day from five in the morning to ten o'clock at night, sometimes later if there was a situation that called for it.

Standing outside the door was a girl who anyone could almost mistake for Relena's twin sister, if they had been related. The only difference between the girls was their dress; the other girl was shorts that went to her knees and a plaid shirt while Relena was in dress pants and blouse that she had worn to the conference she had the day before.

"Lynn!" Relena cried out in excitement as she jumped out of the car and at her friend. The girl welcomed Relena's embrace and pecked the Vice Foreign Minister on the cheek.

"Long time no see girl," smiled Lynn, taking a step back to look her friend over. "So it is true, you _do_ dress as though your some kind of high up, yuppie business woman with a sign over her head that says, "Kidnap or assassinate me if you dare". Wow, I never thought that would have been you."

Relena took no offense to Lynn's remark only because she knew that her friend was teasing her and was making a rather true remark. Her dress, looks, and just her status made Relena a target for kidnappings and assassinations.

"Uh, why are we here?" Relena inquired as she reached inside the Chevy for her duffle bag.

Throwing Adam a glare, Lynn turned back to Relena and put a hand on her shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze.

"Well, genius over there calls me up about twenty minutes ago to tell me that you were running, so Sage and I had to come up with a plan," Lynn told Relena, giving her the long explanation. "You're here to go with Sage to Paris and meet up with Draca. From there you guys will be traveling to Italy after _we_ return from dropping of the car at a dealership."

It was amazing the time it took for Relena's expression of excitement turn to one of bewilderment then to one of fear.

"Oh no," she muttered, "I can't use my identity, Heero well surely trace anything that has any variant of 'Relena Darlian-Peacecraft' on it. He could find me." At that moment that was the last thing she wanted, to be found.

"Don't worry about that Lena," Adam assured with that large grin of his. "That's why she's here," he pointed at Lynn, who stuck her tongue out in response, obviously offended at not having any other 'purpose'.

"Uh?" Relena was a bit confused at what her friends were trying to tell her, that was until Lynn handed her a shuttle ticket, pass port, and license, something Relena didn't have.

"You're taking my place with Sage on that shuttle," Lynn stated.

Immediately, Relena opened her mouth to protest but just as quickly, Lynn held up her hand to silence the Vice Foreign Minister.

"Don't worry about the ID, I have a spare. I lost that one and found again, but by the time I found it I had already bought a new one. So you get to keep that one," assured Relena's 'twin'. "Now you get to play Lynn Voc, I hope you haven't lost your acting skills."

An uncommon smirk of confidence crossed Relena Darlain-Peacecraft's features; of course, she could still act just as well as she had back in school. Every year she would try out for a role in the school play. As usual she would receive the part, though she suspected that it was because of her family, but she was still a fair actress. If she ever felt the need to, she could lie to a person's face and no one would know unless she was attached to a lie detector.

"That's what I told her," Adam agreed, glancing at his watch. "Okay Lynn, we got to run and you, Relena, have to go meet up with Sage inside and put on a great act until you get to Paris. When we meet up with you guys there we'll decide what to do from here on out."

It sounded perfect to Relena. She was getting out of London without having any identification that the preventers could trace to her or anyone associated with her.

Trading spots with Relena, Lynn was about to enter the car when she told Relena, "I left my luggage with Sage, you can wear any of my clothes that you want, if they fit you that is."

Relena smiled nervously; hers and Lynn's styles were very different, where Lynn could wear hip-huggers and shorts Relena wore dress pants and long skirts. The hip-huggers in her duffle bag were some clothes she bought in case she ever got the day off and went out with her friends, for real, which was a rarity.

"We'll see you in a couple of days Lena," Adam stated as he climbed into his car with Lynn.

"Can't wait!" Relena grinned, but there was an uncertainty in her grin that most people would not have recognized.

As the car drove away, Relena stood at the curb feeling utterly alone although she knew she had a friend waiting for her on the inside. Still, that didn't keep her from thinking that maybe this plan was not such a great idea.

_Well too late now Relena, your only mode of transportation just left and you missed out on your chance to go back,_ she chided herself while adjusting the bag on her shoulder. _Now you'll have to deal with the consequences that come your way._

Taking a deep breath, Relena went into the shuttle station and went passed security, where, on the other side, stood a tall dark man with dread locks in his hair. The moment Relena made it past security the man came running up to her and gave her a hug, one that soon turned into her being swung around in a circle.

"Put me down, Sage!" she cried out, tightening her grip around the man's neck.

He slowed to a stop and set Relena down on the ground in front of him.

Sage was identical to his brother in every way but in hair style, the only other difference between the brothers was that Sage was ten minutes older than Adam. Both brothers had that huge, dimple grin, like the one Sage was giving Relena at that moment.

"Sorry Relena, I just got carried away at the sight of you," he apologized to her, blushing a bit as he bowed his head a bit. "Wow, you look great…"

Never being one to handle compliments about her 'beauty'-something Relena did not see-she blushed and turned away. How could anyone just so easily compliment someone else's appearance and just turn them to mush?

"It's great to see you, sweetie. How long has it been, five years?" Sage inquired, taking Relena's duffle bag and handing her a roller suit case.

"Five years that we've known each other and three years since we last saw each other," corrected Relena, feeling a smile growing on her face. This was just what she needed, something to make her feel comfortable and normal again.

"Well, we have a half an hour to wait, so let's sit down and you can tell me what made you finally accept our offer to steal you away," Sage invited as he directed her to a bench to sit down and wait for the shuttle.

"Well…" Relena began her narrative to her long-time friend, the entire tale of woe, starting with her feels and reasons for not wanting to be a politician then gradually going into her thoughts of what her life lacks.

Her tale had continued even as they entered the train and found their seats.

"He what?!" Sage cried out in disbelief. By this time Relena had reached the portion of her narrative that concerned Heero and his little kiss.

"I saw him kiss this girl, passionately," Relena repeated, as much as she loathed saying those words a second time. There was just something in those words that made Relena sad and yet bitter at the same time.

A look of sympathy crossed Sage's face. "I am so sorry girl," he muttered.

For another time that very early morning, Relena felt tears start to well up in her eyes. Why do people feel the urge to stare and send condolences to someone who says something life-changing or slightly depressing? Most of the time that urging or condolences make it more depressing.

Sage must have noticed Relena's watered eyes because he leaned over to her from his seat and hugged her.

"Oh you poor girl, giving your love to some emotionless bastard who tosses it away for some other woman and leaves you to find out the hard way," Sage whispered in her ear.

"It's okay, Sage," Relena assured, pulling away a bit and leaning her head against the window. "It's not Heero's fault, I should have prepared myself for something like that. So, it's just my own folly really."

Even though he wasn't buying it, Sage could sense that his friend didn't wish to discuss the subject further so he decided to change it.

"Say," he began, clearing his throat, "do you still, by some perchance, play piano at all?"

Shifting her eyes from the window to her friend, Relena raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I can still play the piano. That's the one talent I've maintained over the years," she nodded. "May I ask why?"

Shrugging, Sage leaned forward and told her in a low voice, "Well, everyone else has learned an instrument and can play decently."

"So…?" urged Relena, interested.

"So, Adam and I were thinking that maybe we'd put together a band of some sort. We could make our own music, write our own lyrics, look up some archaic songs and play those. And, who knows, maybe we could go around and do little shows to make some money while at school," answered Sage.

Relena bit her lower lip in thought. It had been a while since she last did any improvising on a piano, much less write an entire song.

"Think about Lena, you don't have to give me an answer right away. Besides, we have time," Sage reassured her with a pat on the hand then leaned back in his seat.

Turning her attention back to the window, Relena mused, _We have time, eh? Well, now we do. Now we have all the time in the world…_


	2. A New Name

**It's My Life**

**Okay, as promised, here's ****Lena****'s side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

**Marching band is over with and now I'm back to writing. That was too much of a hassle trying to write every other weekend while going to competitions every weekend then having three practices a week for three hours. Anyways, I'm back and I will be updating from now on.**

For the last 24 hours Relena had slept for only about 15 minutes total and that was all on the Euroshuttle. She had slept lightly until Sage woke her up gently by shaking her shoulder a bit.

"Lena," Sage whispered gently in his friend's ear, "we're in France hon."

Waking up, even though a bit groggy, Relena grabbed her bag and got to her feet, following Sage off the shuttle. During the entire time she unconsciously hid her face behind her slightly mused hair.

Taking notice of Relena's concealment, Sage chuckled lightly to himself before he bent down to mutter in her ear, "You don't need to hide your face." Her head jerked a bit. "There's no media, no cameras flashing in your face anymore. Right now you're just a regular, everyday girl on her way to Italy with friends, nothing more."

Realizing that Sage was right, Relena tugged her hair behind her ears and looked up at her surroundings. Her entire body steadily began to relax as they walked on and no one stopped to stare, point, or flash a camera at them.

_I am just another person,_ Relena smiled. "You're right Sage; I am just like everyone else now."

Putting an arm around her shoulders, Sage grinned widely at her as they exited the shuttle station.

"So where are we going to stay at until Adam and Lynn get here?" Relena inquired.

"Lynn's place," Sage stated simply.

Relena's eyes widened, why wasn't she aware that Lynn had a place of her own, and in France at that?! "Lynn has a house here?" she voiced.

"No," corrected Sage as he hailed for a taxi, "we're staying her adopted family. Draca's already there waiting for us and Lynn's parents are excited to meet us at last since they have heard so much about us."

"You mean you and Lynn are who they are waiting for," corrected Relena as a taxi pulled up to the curb. It was queer, but Relena could feel all the maturity she had built up over the years begin to ease away. It wasn't easing away in the sense that she was becoming less mature but rather not being so uptight about everything.

Knowing that Relena had a point, Sage just shrugged, "Like it matters." Opening the car door, Sage, in his very gentleman way, let Relena in first before sliding into the back seat with her and instructing the driver.

Even as the car was on the move Relena still found herself chuckling softly at Sage's response. It was just so refreshing to have someone so carefree around her that did not treat her as someone who _needed_ protection, like Duo or Hilde.

As much as Relena loved both Duo and Hilde as friends, they liked to remind her quite often that they were there for her protection and not to be her friends. It was only when either in the car or when Relena was sick in bed that Hilde or Duo actually truly let their bodyguard personas down.

Pulling her out of her thoughts was the sound of Sage's humming and air drumming as he read a sheet of music with the words 'Sugar Foot Stomp' written at the top. Leaning over a bit, Relena, careful not to get hit by Sage's wailing arms, looked over the music. She didn't play percussion and she didn't quite know what the each note meant but she could tell by the humming that it was a Ragtime piece.

"Is that the kind of music you were talking about for the band?" Relena inquired, gesturing to the sheet of music.

Being startled out of his musical world, Sage dropped his music. "Uh…what was that Lena?" he asked while bending to retrieve the piece of paper.

With an amused smile, Relena repeated her question, but more slowly.

"Yeah," Sage nodded, "this kind of music and stuff like…here let me get them out." Digging through his bag, Sage finally found a folder that had sheet after sheet of music filed in and out of the folder, even had sheets hanging half out of the folder. "Here, there are some piano parts in there for you to look at if you want."

Shifting through the stack of music that Sage handed to her, Relena looked over the piano parts of each tune. It had been a while since Relena had actually sat a piano and played something that was not classical and something she had learned back in the third grade, like "Hungarian Dance".

"Wow," she commented while looking over some of the pieces, especially one with the title "Weak". "That probably sounds real nice when played."

Glancing at what song his friend was speaking of, Sage smirked. "Adam kind of thought you would like that one since it does have this sort of mellow, classic romantic sound to it. Real nice indeed," he agreed before adding, "especially with you singing it."

Suddenly Relena tensed in her seat. Singing? Her? She hadn't sung anything, professionally, since the eighth grade choir class when she was given a solo part based upon bias and not skill.

"Singing?" she voiced her concern.

Noticing the change in her tone, Sage slapped his forehead.

"These songs have lyrics?"

"Some of them," Sage corrected. "It was Draca's idea to have a lyrical band since her forte is singing. I mean come on, you got to remember Draca's voice, she could have been an opera singer if she wanted to with that range!"

Relena could most certainly remember Draca's voice, it was among one of the most angelic sounds to be heard and Sage did not exaggerate when he stated that Draca could have been an opera singer. _She certainly had the voice, training, and range for it, _Relena noted with a ghost of a smile; how she envied her friend's talent.

"You see, on each song there would be two or three people singing. Like you sing the verse one and three and I take verse two, or you take all the verses and I do the chorus," Sage explained, but that didn't comfort Relena. "Everyone gets to sing, even Adam and I with our bullfrog-like voices will be singing."

Relena laughed.

"What?! You don't believe me? Well, then you should hear Adam when he sings in the shower, it's nothing pleasant; in fact, I think it even cracks the glass in the house," stated Sage, trying so hard not to laugh at his own exaggerations.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, Relena shook her head. "Anything else that I should know about?" she questioned, not wanting anymore surprises jumping out at her.

"Well, Lynn had suggested that each of us write a song or two of our own, then write a couple of instrument parts for the song because each of us plays more than one instrument," Sage told her.

Making a face, Relena shook her head. "I don't think violin counts," she claimed.

"Hey now, you're talking to someone who can teach you how to play some of the smaller percussion parts." Relena looked confused. "You know, like the keyboards," suggested Sage, hoping that Relena would understand what he was talking about.

"Keyboards?" Apparently, she didn't understand what he meant by keyboards, like most other people.

"Yeah, keyboards; vibraphone, marimba, xylophone, bells…any of that making sense to you?" listed Sage.

Feeling that Sage was intentionally insulting her, Relena nodded, "Yes, I know what those are; I just never heard them referred to as 'keyboards' is all."

If there was ever one thing Relena hated more than a betraying Heero was when people treated like she was stupid. She had gone through enough of that in the Eves' War that she didn't feel the need to take anymore of it for the rest of her life.

The taxi pulled up against the curb on a quiet street a little bit outside of Paris.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to insult your intelligence Relena," Sage apologized as he opened the door and got out. "So, are you going to become a groupie in our little band or no?"

Exiting the car, Relena took a moment to think about it while pulling out her duffle bag. Despite the whole singing part, the band sounded like an interesting idea that would give her something to do with her friends and get her back into practicing piano.

Sage was trying to pay the driver but due to his lack of knowledge in French, it wasn't going over so well.

Rolling her eyes, Relena took the wad of francs and spoke to the driver. Having been the daughter of a Vice Foreign Minister and having been one herself, Relena knew a total of four languages; English, Japanese, Italian, and French.

Paying the driver his money, Relena turned back to Sage, who was gapping in shock, and handed him his money.

"Lead the way," she told Sage, gesturing to the apartment building they stood in front of.

Closing his mouth, Sage led the way to the flat the Vocs, occupied. It was easy for them to get into the building since Sage had been given a copy of Lynn's key to the building.

Reaching the door, Sage knocked on it. Promptly, the door swung open to reveal a middle-aged woman, obviously Mrs. Voc, Lynn's adopted mother. She greeted Sage and Relena in French, causing Sage to go into a state of panic.

"Is Draca Ison here?" Relena inquired in French.

Mrs. Voc just eyed Relena with suspicion, something Relena couldn't blame her for since the woman was expecting her daughter not someone who was a look-alike.

The door was pushed open more with the appearance of a girl with onyx black hair and bright jade eyes. This new girl, Draca, spoke a few words to Mrs. Voc and the older woman went away, not before casting another suspicious look at Relena.

Alone in the doorframe, the new girl eyed Relena up and down in a curious manner. It was plain to anyone who really knew Lynn that Relena was most certainly not her.

"Relena?" Draca questioned, raising an inquiring eyebrow.

Suddenly becoming sheepish, Relena lowered her head and nodded.

The scream that erupted from Draca's mouth could have woken the dead. It was one of those excited screams fanatic fans made when they met their favorite celebrity for the first time.

Startled from the screaming, Relena looked up only to see Draca hug her tightly, her screaming dying down into joyous laughter. By that time though there was an audience peering over the railings of the stairs from the lower and upper flats.

"Oh my God, it's really you!" exclaimed Draca, pulling back from Relena then hugging her again.

"Yes, yes, it is really her," Sage sighed, a bit too harshly as he looked about nervously. "As much as I love this reunion, I think this should be taken inside and out of the prying eyes of neighbors."

Releasing her hold on Relena, Draca stuck her tongue out at Sage and dragged them inside the flat, closing the door behind them.

"Don't order me around Sage," Draca told him severely, she hated to take orders from others. Upon turning to Relena though, Draca's countenance softened. "What are you doing here?!"

"Well…" Relena began only to be interrupted by Sage.

"She ran away and we're hiding her for now."

Ignoring the fact that Sage had answered the question, Draca continued to question Relena. "Oh…I see. Does this mean you'll be going to Italy with us?"

This time Relena got to answer for herself. "Yes." It was thrilling to see her friend so excited to see her and to know that Draca was happy with the fact that Relena was stay with the group.

"And college? Are you going to college with us as well?" Draca interrogated, giddily.

Relena's face fell at this question. The furthest her education went was to 9th grade, nothing beyond that point. How was she supposed to go to college when she hadn't even finished high school?

"I don't think so," she replied.

Draca pouted, "Why not?"

"Draca," Sage interjected, "Relena probably never applied to any college." Draca was still confused. "Remember Draca, Relena stopped going to school after freshmen year because of her princess duties to the Sanc Kingdom, being Queen of the World Nation, and then Vice Foreign Minister."

"Oh right," Draca nodded, adverting her eyes a bit. After a few moments though, her head snapped back up. "Well, I don't think Jo-jo will mind you going to college with us. I'm sure she could get you in."

Eyes wide in bewilderment, Relena asked, "Jo-jo? You don't mean Jo-jo Alley?" Draca nodded. "What does Jo-jo have to do with this?"

"Relena, Jo-jo is the headmaster at the college we're going to. I'm sure she can help out if you really want to go to college at all," Sage assured, placing a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder.

Everything in her wanted to pounce upon this opportunity but Relena's cautious mind stopped her. "But if I went I'd be found out by using my name," she pointed out in a disappointed tone.

"Then make up a name," Draca grinned, sounding as though it was the easiest solution to come to.

"And a history, not to mention files?" Relena added in disbelief. "Can't do it. The only person I know that can do all that is Heero."

Now it was Sage's turn to step in. "Not necessarily," he spoke up, pulling out a cell phone, "Ricky is good at that kind of stuff, along the lines of forgery."

"Ricky?"

Draca shrugged, "You know how he wants to be a spy and stuff."

Relena was still not buying it; how could anyone ever have more or the same amount of skill Heero had? There was no way; even the best wouldn't be able to compete with Heero when it came to creating identities.

"Where would Ricky get the resources…?" Relena began to question before a thought struck her and she knew the answer. "Oh right…girl genius that can make any and everything with a roll of duct tape." A knowing smile was exchanged by the three.

"Exactly," Draca nodded. "So, you want to come with us?"

"It won't be the same without you," Sage added with an imploring expression and puppy-dog eyes.

It didn't take long for Relena to cave into her friends. Besides, who could resist Sage's big, puppy-dog eyes?

"Okay, sure, it sounds like fun in an educational way," Relena agreed.

"Great!" cheered Sage, the adorable puppy-dog eyes vanishing for existence.

"What's you're name going to be?" Draca asked, excitedly.

Thinking about, Relena tapped a finger to her chin. What was a name that she could use that none of the Preventers would dare to assume that she would go by? Well, there was her mother's name but that might be obvious, then there were the assorted nicknames but those were even more obvious. Then there was her middle name, something that few people knew. Heck, no one could ever figure it out since on all her files there was just her middle initial…

"Salimar…" Relena began as she looked about the room for inspiration until her eyes fell upon a book lying on the coffee table with the word "Reigns" at the top. "Reigns. Yes, Salimar Reigns is my new name."


	3. Changes

**It's My Life**

**Okay, as promised, here's ****Lena****'s side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

**For those who may not remember 'For Rel', I don't suggest rereading it but I do suggest that you look over some parts from that fic so that you can understanding my reasoning behind some of these scenes. That's just my advise, but you're the readers so do what you like.**

"You're squinting again," Adam pointed out, observing Relena as they studied for their Classical Music History class.

Relena grunted as she reached up to playfully hit her friend, but he caught her hand. This had been going on since they got to Italy and settled into Mrs. Noventa's available rooms, whenever Relena was reading something Adam would watch her closely and the moment she squinted he would let her know.

"Would you just drop it, Adam?" Relena sighed, retracting her hand. "I don't need glasses."

Rolling his eyes, Adam slammed his book shut and pointed to a random paragraph in Relena's book. "Read that for me then," he commanded.

"As one of the greatest composers in history, Amadeus Mozart…" Relena read but her vision blurred a bit and she began to lean forward to read it more clearly. Adam held her back though. "Mozart…"

Adam grinned, "Come on, Lena, wearing glasses is not that horrible."

"No, they're just a pain to take care of," she retorted.

"Is that your only objection?" Relena just gave him a sheepish smile. "Lame reason, tomorrow we're going to go get you some eyewear because, honey, your eyes are just too beautiful to abuse in such a way," Adam stated causing Relena to blush a bit.

"If you say so," she agreed.

"I do say so and while we're at it," Adam paused to look over Relena's business pants and blouse, "perhaps we should let Lynn and Draca take you shopping for some new clothes so that you don't have to borrow theirs."

Relena looked down at her clothes. "What's wrong with my clothes?" she inquired. "I wore these for work all the time…"

"That's the thing Lena, you wore them for _work_, this is school and you don't need to be so…professionally dressed," explained Adam but he saw the defiant look in his friend's eyes. "I'm not saying to completely change your sense of fashion but rather…modify it to suit your life as an average college student in Italy who happens to play in a band."

Examining Adam's clothing and comparing it with her own, it dawned upon Relena that she looked as though she worked at an office instead of a student going to college whereas Adam looked more comfortably dressed in casual clothes that gave the impression that he had a job but he was at college to learn, not to teach or do paperwork.

"I see your point," Relena stated. "Fine, we can make a big shopping trip out of it."

"Fantastic!"

* * *

Relena shook her head in disgust at the short skirt Draca held up. There was nothing wrong with the skirt except that it was too short, if Relena had been 15 again she would wear it with a large shirt overlapping it but she didn't want to do that. 

"Come on," Draca pouted, "it's such a cute skirt Relena."

"It's just so short," Relena pointed out.

Lynn grinned, "I told you so. She needs something like jeans and nice, _classy_, non-slut skirts with some good shirts that show her figure but not too much."

Draca put her hands on her hips as she turned to Lynn. "This skirt is _classy_, it does not look like something a slut would wear," she argued, and Relena would have begged to differ but Relena didn't exactly want Draca's wrath upon her.

"Ladies," Sage interjected, "there is a simple, _peaceful _way to solve all of this. Lynn, you go pick out clothes you think Relena will like and Draca you go pick out the clothes you think she will like. Relena will give us a fashion show and tell us what _she_ likes and does not like. Are we in agreement?"

"That's fine with me," Lynn nodded.

"Perfectly alright with me," Draca grinned, smugly.

Pleased, Sage rubbed his hands together in anticipation. "On my mark…" he paused for dramatic effect, "go!"

It amazed Relena so much to see the girls just take off so quickly leaving Relena and the boys in the dust. Relena stood in place with her mouth flopping up and down until Adam pulled her toward a chair and sat her down.

"And now we wait for your glasses and clothes," Adam grinned. "Some fashion show this is going to be. How're your contacts? Do they feel alright?"

"A bit odd, especially since I'm not quite certain how brown eyes suites me," replied Relena, rubbing her eyes a bit. "I'm just lucky that they even had my prescription available to begin with."

Sage nodded, "Yeah, I've heard that those things take some time to get used to, especially since you have to touch your eye to put them in and take them out. How is it that your bodyguards never noticed that you need glasses?"

The thought never really occurred to Relena before, so she had to think a little bit on it. "Well, that's not completely true," she stated after a while, "Hilde and Duo had mentioned it a couple of times but I always told them that I was too busy to see the eye doctor and I also told them that I didn't really need glasses."

"Didn't they give you some sort of miniature eye test or something?" Adam inquired. "It seems like the Preventer thing to do…"

Laughing, Relena assured them that Duo especially tried to give her an eye examine numerous times. "Of course, I had by that time memorized the eye chart and I fooled them into thinking I had 20/20 vision. Not even Heero knew about my eye problem since he was a bit distracted."

"Is he even cute?" Adam asked out of the blue.

Sage and Relena looked at each other and laughed. "Only my brother could say that one," laughed Sage, slapping his knee as he bent over with laughter.

"What?" Adam demanded. "I think that is a legitimate question. So come on, is he or isn't he cute?"

"Yes, he's very handsome, but I don't think he's quite your type…"

"Hey," interjected Sage, looking up from a newspaper he found on a table, "is this him in the picture?"

Relena snatched the paper from Sage's hands and examined that photo and article. "That is him," Relena nodded. "'Preventer Heero Yuy has been in charge with the task of searching for the still missing Vice Foreign Minister Relena Darlian. Over the past five months the Preventers have been following every lead possible but they have found no sign of Ms. Darlian.

"'Consequently, rumors within the political world have been that Ms. Darlian's disappearance is linked to her fear of losing the election for Vice Foreign Minister that was to take place next year. Supposedly, Ms. Darlian's rival was to be none of than Sylvia Noventa,'" Relena read.

"Bull shit!" Adam cried out, snatching the newspaper from Relena. "The little fu…"

"Adam…" warned Sage.

"Sons of guns, that is complete bull shit and they know it!" Adam continued, poking angrily at the newspaper. "Oh, he is cute." Examining the picture more carefully, Adam questioned, "Does he always wear such a scowl on his face?"

Relena nodded, "He hates having his picture taken for any reason. Trust me; it took some major convincing and some pre-planning to get a picture of him taken." She shook her head a bit as she recalled some past instance of having her picture taken with Heero. "He was always stubborn about having his picture taken."

"Well, lately he seems to have been quite photogenic. His picture has been in every tabloid I've seen," Adam mentioned, noticing how Relena's head lowered a bit. "I wonder why…"

"Journalist are probably trying to dig up some dirt about how my disappearance is a set-up or how he was having an unprofessional relationship with me," Relena explained with a false smile.

It was really a lie and both of the guys could see right through it but they didn't have the chance to say anything as Lynn and Draca returned with armfuls of clothes for Relena to try on.

It didn't take long to realize that Relena preferred Lynn's style of clothing but Draca did pick out some shirts that weren't too revealing while showing a little bit of skin. While Relena was wearing an off-the-shoulder top with light pants, Draca was struck with a thought.

"Hey Relena, how do you feel about a hair cut?" she suggested.

"Do you think it is wise cut a wig?" Relena questioned, twirling a bit of her moss green wig around her fingers. Draca had taken Relena shopping for wigs in Paris, there they had bought three wigs for Relena to wear for disguises and one of the wigs happened to have a lovely dark moss green color that Draca adored. So, Relena had decided to wear the green wig to go with her new life as Salimar Reigns.

Draca shook her head, "I mean your real hair. How do you feel about cut some of your real hair? You know, so that it's not so much of a hassle to fit under that wig."

Biting her lower lip, Relena thought about it. She hadn't cut her hair since after the Eves' War and she had hated it so much to have such short hair. Still, her hair was already quite lengthy and it was becoming a bother, especially since it was becoming so difficult to brush.

"Sure, as long as you don't cut it too short," agreed Relena.

"No," Draca assured standing up and approaching her friend. "Only to about here." Draca demonstrated by placing her hand just a little below Relena's shoulder and moving it upwards as Draca moved her hand to the back of Relena's head. "To about here, you know, on a diagonal. It's just an idea of course."

"Oh, that would be awesome!" Lynn exclaimed with a smile, jumping up and joining the other two girls. "Lena that would look great on you! Hair longer in the front and shorter in the back, I can just see it now."

Relena smiled. Who was she to dampen her friend's high spirits? Besides, what was a haircut to her, her hair would grow back eventually if she didn't like the new look. So, there was nothing really to be lost by Relena having her friends cut her hair.

"Go ahead then, cut my hair."

* * *

"Giorgio!" Draca greeted, the bartender as the 'For Rel' band entered the quaint bar while carrying in their instruments. 

"Signora Draca, welcome! The stage is all yours for tonight, as usual," Giorgio returned with a smile as he watched each of the band members scurrying about, setting up the drum set and keyboard. "Signora Salimar, you have new clothes!"

Relena stopped and turned to Giorgio with a bashful smile, she was pleased that someone noticed the difference. "All three of us girls have the same outfit tonight, Giorgio," she explained.

Glancing at Lynn and Draca's clothing, Giorgio nodded but commented, "It suites you."

"Grazie," Relena blushed, heading outside to get the stand for the keyboard.

"She does look nice, doesn't she?" Sage remarked to the bartender, taking a seat at the bar for a moment with the bass drum resting on his lap.

"Sí."

Sage didn't have time to rest before Draca came up to him and, with one hand on her hip in an intimidating manner, pointed towards the stage. "Get moving Sage, your drum set doesn't get set up on its own."

"You never know about that one," grinned Sage as he got up and winked at Draca.

On the stage Relena watched her two friends interact with Adam at her side.

"You'd think they would have hooked up by now," Adam noted as he set up the stand. "Is that too wide?"

"No, that's right," answered Relena, unzipping the keyboard case. "Why haven't Draca and Sage gotten together yet?"

Done with the stand, Adam came over to help Relena lift the keyboard out of the case and onto the stand. "Well," he began, bending down and picking up one side of the instrument, "those two are too stubborn and have one too many misunderstandings that they completely don't see that they like each other."

Setting the keyboard on the stand, Relena pulled out the cords she need and rolled her amp over to the side.

"That's really sad," she stated.

"Tell me about it," Adam snorted, picking up his bass guitar and hooking it up to his amp. Early on, the band had found out that hooking two guitars or the keyboard and a guitar to the same amp was not a good idea. "Hey, give me a G."

"Tuning already?" Sage noted as he set up his collection of cymbals.

"You bet," nodded Adam, focused on his tuning. "That sounds about right, eh?"

Relena nodded as she adjusted the volume. "Hey Giorgio, how does this sound?" She hit a C chord and Giorgio gave her a thumb's up. "Good, then I'll have to keep it there."

Draca adjusted her mic stand and spoke gently into the microphone. "Testing, testing, one, two," she said and found that the microphone worked to her satisfaction and turned it off. "Good, everyone set?"

"No," Lynn declared as she tuned her Vantage t218 electric guitar.

Diddling a bit on the keyboards at low volume Relena watched as the door of the bar opened. It was habit for her to watch the door and see who came into the bar to relax, drink, or listen to the band.

Normally, Relena would have glanced at the door then look away but this time she found that she couldn't quite look away.

"Relena…?" Adam whispered, waving a hand in front of Relena's face.

"Don't call me that," Relena told him in an urgent voice as she spun around so that her back was to the door. "Please don't refer to me as Relena, _at all_, tonight."

Adam was bewildered. What was it that got Relena so worried that he wasn't even allowed to address her by her real name…? Looking up at the door, Adam realized why. There by the door was a herd of people and at the front of the herd was the new Vice Foreign Minister, Sylvia Noventa, and next to her, Heero Yuy.

"Oh shit…"

"Exactly," groaned Relena, brushing some of her green hair behind an ear. "Tell Sage and I'll tell the other girls as we go get drinks. This is going to be one hell of a night."

**Thank you to: ****DogDemonK9, Morrighan of Crimson and Sable, Elly, andLynn-Minmay. Thank you guys for your support. **


	4. First Encounter

**It's My Life**

**Okay, as promised, here's ****Lena****'s side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

**Here's a late Christmas present yet early New Years gift to you guys. I hope you enjoy!**

Gathering Draca and Lynn about her, Relena told them of their situation in a whisper and how the girls had to be certain to refer to her as 'Salimar' throughout the evening as they made their way to the bar for drinks.

"Well," Lynn whispered, "you just know that they're going to think that I'm you, Re…Salimar." Lynn took off into a playful run, coaxing the other two girls to follow so while giggling at the statement.

It wasn't so much that it was a humorous statement but rather that it was plausible and likely to happen, causing the girls to laugh at the prospect of, most likely, Heero approaching Lynn and calling her 'Relena'.

Reaching the bar counter the girls still giggled over their private joke.

Draca was the first to recover and carelessly lean over the counter shouting, "Hey Giorgio, need the five usual, piacere!"

Desperately trying to maintain her cool composure, Relena tried not to glance over at Duo and Heero, whom Giorgio was attending to.

"Sί, signorina, after I'm done with these men and their drinks," replied Giorgio with a grin while placing three open bottles of cream sodas on the counter in front of Heero and Duo.

Draca playfully pouted until she was distracted by the clearing of the throat caused by Duo, much to Relena's amusement rather than surprise. It was Duo Maxwell after all, and during their acquaintance as bodyguard and employer Relena had come to realize that even if Duo was dating someone he would flirt with any pretty girl he got the opportunity with.

"Evening, ladies, so what are three gorgeous ladies, like yourselves, doing in a place like this?" he asked giving the girls a wink.

Feeling a modest smile cross her features, Relena didn't bother to hide it, unlike Lynn as she blushed and turned away. Relena was a bit surprised at the blush, it wasn't like Lynn to blush over a compliment from a fairly attractive member of the opposite sex.

"Entertainment, darling, entertainment," answered Draca, playfully blowing Duo a kiss.

Glancing over Duo's shoulder, Relena saw that Hilde was watching their interaction with narrowed eyes, especially Draca. Not wishing any death threats upon her old friends, Relena took the opportunity to point out her observations. "Seems like your girlfriend is getting quite jealous of your flirtation." Relena gestured to her fuming friend at the table where the rest of the preventer group was situated.

"Also, your friend looks as though he could use some help," winked Draca, nodding towards the Heero as the 'Perfect Soldier' was attempting to grab four bottles of soda at a time.

With an expression of realization and haste, Duo quickly dashed to Heero's rescue by grabbing the other five bottles from the counter and heading back to the table.

Turning back to her friends for their assessments of their first encounter with Heero and Duo, Relena found Draca eyeing the boys still and leaning down to whisper in Lynn's ear. Lynn had not made eye contact with neither, Duo nor Heero during the entire correspondents.

"Lui è carino," Draca told Lynn in her ear.

"Chi?" Lynn muttered back absently, not even bothering to look up at whom Draca was referring to. Relena didn't even know who her friend was referring to.

_Does she find Duo to be cute? I mean he is in a sort of child-like way but…_

"Lui coi capelli corti e marroni scuri," clarified Draca, causing Relena to almost glare at her; however, Giorgio saved Draca from one of Relena's rare glares.

"Here you are girls," Giorgio told them placing a tray of five cups of tea with a honey pot in the center.

"Grazie," spoke up Relena, pulling out the money to pay for the drinks out of her shoe.

Over the time that they had been staying in Italy combined with some minor lessons, Relena and her friends had learned to speak Italian quite fluently. It certainly came in handy during class sometimes for some of the professors would slip from speaking English to suddenly speaking Italian. With knowledge of the language the group could understand their professors' lapses of languages.

Paying for the drinks and taking the tray, Relena turned to carry the drinks to the boys.

Deciding to surprise Draca in return for the comment about Heero, Relena informed her friends that Heero had most likely heard and understood what they had said. Relena knew that Heero was fluent in many languages for it had to have been part of his training to be a gundam pilot, but also because she had often heard him say a few lines at fundraisers and special events to representatives who didn't speak a word of English.

She got the desired effect from both her friends; shock.

"How?" argued Lynn as they made their way back to the stage and to the guys.

"Hey girls, how did it go?" Sage greeted, taking his cup of tea from the tray before Relena had time to set it down.

"Sage," scolded Draca angrily, "let her put the tray down before you go grabbing for your drink!"

Sticking his tongue out at the girl, Sage pointedly ignored her advise and proceeded to let a dab of honey fall into his cup. Then sipped his tea, the liquid burning his tongue, as suspected.

"HOT!" he cried, fanning his tongue.

Rolling his eyes at his brother's stupidity, Adam took the cup Relena offered to him. "So?" he promoted only to receive blank looks. "How did your encounter go? Who was that guy? Was he a pain? Was he hitting on you girls, because his body language basically suggested as much."

Laughing a bit, Lynn was the one to answer, "It did go very well, Relena handled herself perfectly. The guy was trying to engage us in some flirtation but he only succeeded with Draca." She blew on her tea then took a small sip before adding, "However, I don't know who that was."

All eyes turned to Relena.

"That was Duo Maxwell," supplied Relena, but then continued on with a meaningful look at Draca, "and he has a girlfriend who just happens to be here with the group, Hilde Schibecker."

"Whoops," Draca muttered slowly, realizing her mistake in blowing him a kiss. "I thought that he was single since he was hitting on us."

"Don't worry about it," assured Relena with a comforting smile over the rim of her cup. "Duo does that all the time with any seemingly available women who he has been given the opportunity to flirt with. I've seen it many times while he was my bodyguard."

"Wow," snorted Adam, "good to know that our friend was in the safe hands of a guy who could get distracted by a skirt standing a few feet away all alone." The sarcasm was noticeable but Relena let it all slide.

Sage watched Sylvia Noventa and her group as he drank his tea slowly. It had become tradition for the band to drink tea and honey every time before they performed, supposedly it helped maintain their voices and prevent sore throats.

Relena wasn't quite certain how accurate that was but she didn't mind having tea and honey. It actually tasted best that way in her opinion.

"Are you alright, Sage?" Lynn inquired, eyeing the drummer questioningly. He was not acting himself and he kept starring at the table, which wasn't good because it could attract unwanted attention from the preventers of the table.

Snapping out of his gazing, Sage turned to his friends with a false smile plastered on his face.

"Course," he nodded, finishing his cup and setting it down on the tray before escaping behind his drums, adjusting the high ride cymbal and stool to his liking.

The group wasn't fooled but no one was going to press Sage at the moment. Later, someone would though, most likely Draca.

"Well," sighed Draca, finishing her cup and climbing up on stage, "guess we should get started shortly. Finish your tea and get ready."

No one protested. With Draca no one was meant to protest for arguing with Draca was like arguing with a tree, the girl would not move from her decision or command. In plain English, it was useless to question Draca.

One by one the other three band members finished their drinks and went to their respected instruments.

Standing at the keyboards, Relena looked up at the table to find the group speaking with Sylvia. In her chest Relena felt a pang of jealous, she wished it were her that the group was speaking to instead of Sylvia.

_Yet,_ Relena thought bitterly, _even if you were in her place you wouldn't have Heero's affections like she does. Nothing would have changed if you had stayed, you would still be overly exhausted by working 20 to 22 hours a day, sleeping in the office half the time and the other catching quick naps in car rides._

The lights in the bar dimmed as Adam and Lynn slipped on their guitars and strum a few notes to make certain the volume was good.

Even in the dark, Relena could faintly see the outline of Draca as she took up the microphone and heaved an excited yet nervous sigh. That was another tradition, everyone would unconsciously heave a sigh of nervousness no matter how many times the group had practiced their songs; one just never knew when something would go wrong.

"Now signoras and signores, welcome, to our main event of the evening!" Draca's voice boomed above the silence of the bar. "Please welcome the one, the only, 'For Rel'!"

Following the announcement was the dry applause from the few drunks at the bar and possibly from the preventer table.

It wasn't a disappointment or a surprise to the band, it was how their performances always started off at Giorgio's. There would be so few people there when the band arrived and started to play, then by the end of the night there would a fairly large crowd of enthusiastic listeners.

Giorgio knew that and that was one of his major reasons for always booking the group for a gig and always ready to pay the band in cash after their performance. The first time the band had played for Giorgio it was more or less a trial, skeptical run that turned out to be quite profitable for both sides.

Lights returned to normal while Lynn was adjusting her amp as it was making awful ticking sound until she realized it was due to her watch. Removing her watch and placing it inside her pocket, Lynn stood on the stage facing the audience as well as everyone else.

There was such a thrill in starting off the first song for they always played the same song first just for suspense. Everyone waited, including the band, for Lynn to start up the song.

No one in 'For Rel' moved until the Lynn started up only to be joined by Sage a couple measures into the song, then Adam entered and last was Relena.

**Thank you to Lynn-Minmay and Morrighan of Crimson and Sable for being such loyal reviewers in my Gundam Wing fics. I really appreciate it so much.**


	5. Sing a Song

**It's My Life**

**Okay, as promised, here's Lena's side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

Relena enjoyed this song, it was cute and up-beat; very up-beat. Plus it was among the first songs that the group had chosen, and even though it was actually meant to be sung by a male the group had decided that Draca would sing it for she had the right range for the song. There was only one minor detail about their songs that Relena didn't enjoy, and that was that the songs were in Japanese. The language just reminded Relena too much of Heero.

Watching Draca and Adam take turns singing the verses, Relena smiled at the ease both of her friends had with the songs and loved the way Draca moved about the crowd, trying to get their small audience into the music.

Resting for Lynn's guitar solo, Relena eyed the 'Preventer table' and examined how Duo, even Hilde and Catherine seemed to be the only ones truly enjoying themselves other than Vice Foreign Minister Sylvia Noventa.

Snapping out of her momentary feelings of envy, Relena made her entrance into the song on time. If she had lapsed into thought and examination any longer she would have completely missed her entrance, throwing off the rest of the band.

Despite the fact that they as musicians weren't supposed to rely on each other for where they were in the song, the 'For Rel' band did.

Draca ended the song and people applauded in the typical manner, very softly; almost as though everyone was at a golfer's tournament. It came to the band as no real surprise until they heard someone whistling and stomping.

Scanning the room, Relena saw that it was Duo who was whistling and stomping his feet. The sight made her grin broadly, for that was among the greatest compliments that could be given to them as a band.

"Thank you all for your _unenthused _gratitude as always, except for the guy with the braid. Are you giving out clapping lessons at all?" joked Draca, a common tactic that the band used after the first song. It was a way to try and liven the bar up a bit, especially as a couple of people entered the bar.

"Since we're boring you all," Draca stated, her sarcasm very apparent, "I'll take a short time and introduce ourselves. I am Draca Ison, lead vocalist, thank you! On bass we have Adam Cole!"

Adam, being himself, held up the rock'n'roll signs from the twenty-first century. It had somehow become Adam's signature sign, as that was what he always did when Draca introduced the members of the band. Relena really had no idea where he got the 'rock'n'roll' sign from.

"Yeah, he's the insane one," Draca remarked teasingly. "Then we have our electric guitarist, Lynn Voc. Say 'hi' Lynn."

"Are we really _that_ boring people?!" Lynn asked through her microphone after playing a few cords, another trademark.

No one in the bar answered Lynn's question, so she turned it into a positive response. "Silence is to be taken as a no, then."

Rolling her eyes, Draca continued, "Sage Cole on drum set and small percussion."

Choosing not to stand up, Sage held up his drumsticks in the form of a cross.

Covering her mouth with a hand, Relena giggled a bit for she knew now that the cross was basically symbolizing 'back evil thing'. Sage, becoming hyped up with adrenaline, would suddenly become very playful during performances.

"Not cute Sage, they're not evil!" scolded Draca in irritation. Shaking her head ruefully, Draca turned to Relena with a wink. "Last, and the least," Relena made an offended expression, "Salimar Reigns, our keyboardist and pianist! I sincerely hope that did just come out correctly and not in some sick form."

Since everyone else had some sort of trademark gesture when introduced, Relena felt that she should have one for herself. It was the classic bow and wave, which Relena got from the stereo-typed gesture pianists made when introduced.

Looking up from her bow, Relena noticed that Sylvia and Heero were talking to each other. Somehow it bothered Relena, not making her necessarily jealous but rather annoyed.

_Sure, he can talk to her in a public place around friends but he couldn't do that with me,_ she thought bitterly, while exchanging her music for the next song.

Making eye contact with everyone in the band, Draca nodded her head and the entire band started off together strong and softened so that drums were the main feature for a moment until the keyboard kicked with the setting as 'trumpet'.

Changing the settings of the keyboard again, Relena quickly got back in with the rest of the band.

For not being people who took chorus in school, Adam had a pleasing voice. A voice that Relena really liked as it was much more pleasing than the voice that Duo used in the shower. Relena involuntarily shuddered a bit as she remembered the time when she walked into Duo's room one night in search of Hilde only to hear Duo from the shower.

As the band entered into another instrumental break, Draca approached Relena, much to Relena's surprise.

Draca leaned toward Relena's ear while Relena played the chords of the vocal-less section, she had it memorized.

"Hey, do you want to take the English part for me this time? I'm still stuck in the Japanese language that I'm afraid I might forget the entire English verse or switch to Japanese in the middle!" Draca shouted in Relena's ear. "I'll give you the signal to sing!"

Understanding where Draca was coming from, Relena nodded. Singing so many songs in Japanese that had English breaks was a bit difficult because the singers were so used to singing in Japanese that they forget the English parts.

Watching Draca for her cue, Relena didn't have to wait long until Draca gave her a thumb's up.

"The sun sets and a new day comes

Repeating is one change

Don't avert eyes from differences

Your nerve and soul to the limit

Go forward NOW!"

Relena loved that part of the song for it was so catchy and really profound if a person just took the time to examine the words and their meanings.

Hanging onto their last note of the song, 'For Rel' waited for Sage to do a short roll of the cymbal until cutting off all sound.

Having been too engrossed in the singing and playing, Relena hadn't noticed that the number of people had almost tripled by the end of the song. At least she wasn't aware until the thunderous applause was heard.

"Whoa! Where the hell did all of you come from?!" Sage cried out, standing up from behind the drum set and leaning into his microphone.

"They came to hear Lynn!" answered Adam, giving Lynn a playful wink when she turned and glared while adjusting the tuning of her guitar. "Let's turn it down a notch and have Lynn give you all a wonderful experience, eh?"

Most of the men in the bar, including a very overactive Duo, were cheering supportively for Lynn to sing.

Relena smiled, happy that it wasn't her who to sing, but even more happy that Lynn was being 'tortured' by having to sing.

Starting up the next song by playing a series of eighth note cords repeatedly for five seconds, Relena was joined by Lynn while Adam put down his guitar and headed to the back of the stage. At the same moment, Lynn began singing while Relena adjusted the keyboard sound to bell chimes and Draca escaped back by Sage.

Draca returned with a tambourine, and began to hit on counts one and three while adding some little shakes every now an then and extra little beats.

"Kimi wo, kimi wo ai shiteru

Kokoro de, mitsumete iru

Kimi wo, kimi wo shinjiteru

Samui yoru mo," all three of the girls sang.

Relena enjoyed this song a lot, even if it wasn't exactly a 'slow song', it was still an easy-going sort of song that happened to have a light, sort of up-beat tone to it. Plus, it let Draca have some fun with small percussion for a while, something that wasn't common.

Another reason Relena really liked this song was that she picked it out and Lynn had volunteered, after some persuasion, to sing it.

Adam entered with his bagpipe solo, which he had learnt to play when he was ten. Lynn was his only accomplice during the entire solo.

Relena, Draca, and Sage shared knowing glances as people were applauding Adam, for it was not often that people got to see someone who knew how to play the bagpipes and play them well. The instrument, bagpipe, became a rare thing to hear or be taught as many people found the instrument not to their tastes and found no interest in it.

"Samui yoru mo," the girls sang, ending the song with bell chimes from the keyboard and cymbals decrescendo. Relena decided to do something fun with the finale, running her fingers across the entire keyboard to make a wind chime sound.

Before Relena had no idea she could generate such a sound until she found herself diddling around with the keyboard and settings at the Noventa house before she had to pack up for the bar.

Looking up at the enthused crowd, Relena saw, much to her delight, that Trowa and Quatre were among the masses of people giving the band a standing ovation.

"Oh…look at all those pretty girls in the crowd boys!" Relena commented into her microphone.

Both boys immediately understood where she was taking the comment, and the brothers just shook their heads with pleading eyes. Anyone could see that they were in fact twin brothers as they gave Relena identical imploring, puppy-dog eyes.

Smiling mischievously, Relena suggested, "Wow, I think they want to hear you two sing a solo. What do you two say?" The question had been asked towards Lynn and Draca only because they were going to concur with Relena.

"I agree," stated Lynn, looking pointedly at Adam. Making Adam sing again was revenge for him making her sing.

Draca nodded slowly with an evil smirk on her lips that told the band that the wheels in Draca's head were spinning with inspiration. Adam and Sage cringed in fear, Adam shook his head vigorously as he put his bass guitar back on while Sage held up a silver crucifix.

"The power of God compels thee!" yelled Sage so that everyone could hear him.

Laughing in delight, Relena shook her head Sage. Only he would say such a thing and with the use of archaic words like 'thee'.

Most of the girls in the bar stood up and yelled for the boys to do a song, including the gundam boys' girls, much Relena's pleasure, and Sylvia, much to Relena's discomfort.

"I do believe they think otherwise guys," teased Lynn.

"Come on, don't be shy," chided Draca, purposely luring the boys into a trap where their courage was to be challenged.

"Fine," agreed Adam giving Relena a playful glare, which Relena returned with an innocent smile. Turning to Lynn, Adam gave her a nod and she started up on the electric guitar, after returning the nod.

"FLASH BACK! . . . FLASH BACK! . . . DON'T STOP! . . . DON'T STOP! . . ." Relena sang with the rest of the band as Adam responded in Japanese.

This was another song Relena really enjoyed. It was a fun song and was a bit misleading in the beginning as far as the vocals, for the band would have the quick call and more flowing response, then the rest of the lyrics were sung in a very flowing, easy manner that some people had called 'soulful'.

Relena had found Adam's voice pleasing, and Sage's voice was much different except that it was a tad bit deeper and had a more rich tone to it.

Electric solo entered with the faint sound of the drums in the background. Skillfully Lynn played high cords on the guitar with speed and grace as she had walked up in front of Sage and Adam, showing off her skills a bit. Near the end of her solo, Lynn backed off so that the boys could sing the final verse together.

Drums pounded heavily while the electric and keyboard followed closely behind; closing the song with a bang!

"Beautifully done guys!" commented Draca as she returned to the stage. She had, as usual, been grabbing unsuspecting people in the bar and getting them to start dancing with her, then switch partners. "I think you two brought a tear to my eye!"

"Our mission in life, eh Sage?!" Adam replied, jokingly as he turned and gave his brother a teasing wink that had several meanings behind it.

"All right people, we're going to take a break then it's the finale!" announced Draca.

Groans were heard from the crowd as they applauded for more music, causing the band to share in a secret smile of gratitude. It was an amazing feeling to experience when people actually request for more music from a band. One of the highest compliments in Relena's opinion.

"Demanding crowd," grinned Draca, "we'll be back in five, _five_, minutes! While all of you are waiting, buy a drink or two from that handsome signore there. Wave Giorgio!"

Giorgio numbly waved then went back to placing drinks on the counter, he always tried to look indifferent about the bands that performed in his bar, but the 'For Rel' members knew that he held them in high esteem.

Turning her keyboard down to a minimum, Relena adjusted the settings for the next songs while the others set aside their instruments and turned off the amps and microphones; no need to waste electricity.

Draca chattered quietly with the boys causing them to lift their heads in the general direction of the table where the gundam pilots and girls were sitting, idly speaking with each other.

"Hey _Salimar,_" Lynn greeted, coming over to Relena with a cup of warm water, which Giorgio had brought over while the band was performing, and stirring in a spoonful of honey. "What was that guy, Claudio, saying to you in class today?"

Relena shrugged a bit, "He just asked if I would go out with him."

Lynn's eyebrows rose from behind the cup she was sipping. "And…?"

"And, knowing that he already had a girlfriend, asked him how much he was willing to pay me," answered Relena.

"Nah-uh! You did _not_ say that, did you?!" Lynn exclaimed, trying her hardest not to have her honey water spraying out of her nose as she laughed.

"How much you want to bet on that?" challenged Relena, turning around to Lynn with an over-confident smirk on her face.

"Oh Draca," Lynn called out, motioning for Draca to come over, "our little baby Salimar has grown to be such a fantastic heartbreaker! She turned down going out with one of the more popular freshmen from campus, believe it or not. Her response was, "How much are you willing to pay me?" No more teaching her how to turn guys down." Lynn said as that while chuckling at the thought.

"Go Salimar, ow-ow-ow!" Draca grinned, giving Relena an impressed yet approving expression. "Then again," she continued with an air of false conceit, "you did have the best teacher in the world of rejecting the male species, me. How I have taught you well!"

"Yeah Draca, you're just the queen of rejecting guys, that maybe why you never had a boyfriend," commented Sage getting an elbow strike into the abdomen by Draca's evil elbow. "Down pussy cat." At that, Draca began to crack her knuckles in warning.

"Just think, that's coming from a guy who thinks he's so smooth," Adam remarked to Lynn and Relena.

There were lots of shouted threats in Italian and Japanese as Draca chased Sage around on the stage a bit.

"Told you, they couldn't get along for more than two or three minutes, Lynn," Adam pointed out, returning to a conversation that Lynn and him had while in the van that day. "Your best bet is to give up on trying to get them to actually be civil with each other."

"Never! It'll just take some time is all. Time and a lot of work," reassured Lynn waving off Adam's advise.

Personally, Relena agreed with Adam only because Draca and Sage had that love-hate-denial relationship. It was sometimes annoying and caused a lot of incivility between the two, but the moments when they were civil were often times very sweet and cute.

"Ahem! Excuse me, may I have a word with Sage Cole?" asked an aoristically.

Relena almost jumped at the voice, she didn't need to turn around to know who it was but she still did. It was Sylvia Noventa, current Vice Foreign Minister and Heero Yuy's girlfriend.

_Be nice,_ Relena reminded herself, _what would she want with Sage anyways?_ "Sure thing." Looking over her shoulder, Relena shouted, "Hey Sage, get your cute self over here, pronto! Someone's here to have a word or two with you, for whatever reason!"

Faster than lighting, if possible, Sage with among the small group with a fuming Draca following behind him muttering something about stupid drummer boys and shoving a drumstick up his behind before the night was through.

"A fan?! For me?! Oh! Oh! Where?! Who?!" babbled Sage jumping up and down like a little child.

Relena usually would have found Sage's actions cute if it wasn't Sylvia who had requested to see him.

Sage stopped his jumping when he saw that it Sylvia before him, immediately his face broke out into a full blown grin.

"Sylvia! Amica, how are you?! _Where_ have you been?! How long has it been?!" he questioned rapidly, jumping off the platform and pulling Sylvia into a giant bear hug, beginning to swing her around much like how he had when he saw Relena again.

"Amica?" Draca muttered, looking towards Lynn and Relena as thought they would know the reason behind Sage calling Sylvia 'girlfriend'.

Both girls just shrugged and gave a perplexed look to tell Draca that they knew no more than she did.

"One question at a time, Sage," giggled Sylvia when Sage finally set her down on the edge of the platform in a sitting position. "I've been quite well, thank you. Traveling from colony to colony and all over Asia is where I have been, and it has been three years since we last saw each other."

Relena suppressed the urge to glare at Sylvia. _Oh, so it's not enough for her to interject into my life and break through to Heero without my knowing, now she has been friends with my friends and I never knew!_

"Wow, three years huh? Really, that long? Uh…it felt longer," remarked Sage deciding to sit beside Sylvia and avoid eye contact with Relena despite the fact that he felt her eyes upon him. "Why are you traveling so much?"

"Maintaining the peace," Relena tried not to cringe, "since Vice Foreign Minister Darlian had ran away someone had to do something, so I volunteered to do so," explained Sylvia with much boastfulness in her tone.

Relena shook her head ruefully to hide doubtful look that was no doubt in her eyes while Draca rolled her eyes and Lynn let out an exhausted sigh.

To let off some of her pent up irritation, Relena interjected in on the conversation, "Are you going to be introducing us to your friend, Sage? Or are we just supposed to be left in the dark on who she is and who he is?" Relena vaguely gestured to Duo when she noticed that he was standing there waiting for someone to say something.

"Course, Adam you tell them," Sage suggested, still trying to avoid Relena.

"Right bro," sighed Adam rather annoyed that his brother wasn't going to introduce the girls to his friend. "Girls, that there is Sylvia Noventa, the grand-daughter of the former Grand Marshal Noventa of the Alliance. That dude there is…I don't know. Some dude with a long braid, a goofy smile, and is really scaring me."

Relena laughed silently knowing the Adam was putting on an act for everyone knew that the 'dude with a long braid' was Duo Maxwell.

"The name's Duo, Duo Maxwell, I may run and hide, but I'll never tell a lie. That's me in a nutshell basically ladies," corrected Duo, stepping onto the platform grinning his winning grin.

Not disappointed at all with Duo's manners, Relena bit back her laughter and stood there with amused eyes and a secret smile.

"I'm technically with Sylvia, but I just really wanted all your autographs," Duo told the band.

Unreadable glances were exchanged throughout the group, excluding Sage. Someone asking for their autographs was not an everyday occurrence, in fact it had never happened before. As usual, Draca was the first to recover and break out into a devious smile.

"That all, because we don't have any pens on us, and it doesn't look like you have a pad of paper for us to sign," Draca pointed out.

"Easy," claimed Duo unclipping his white priest collar and pulling it off, much to Relena's surprise. "All of you can sign on this and I'm certain someone here will have a permanent marker somewhere."

Again, there was an exchange of looks. What were they to do? It wasn't as though they could really deny him their signatures. So, the group finally decided 'to hell with it' and shrugged.

"You got it, go find that marker while we perform," winked Relena playfully, nodding to the side as a gesture that Duo had better get going. "We'll see you after our finale."

Relena found it amazing how Duo's whole face lit up, literally, as he smiled like a little child. She hadn't seen him so happy since the day he had asked Hilde to go out with him and she said 'yes'. That was last year too.

"Really?!" Relena nodded her assurance. "Awesome!" he cheered, leaping off the platform and doing a mixture of walking and dancing back to his table with a large smile on his features.

Watching Duo leave, Relena couldn't help but be amused and even a bit saddened that he had left. It was great to talk with Duo again, even if he didn't know that he was speaking to Relena rather than some girl named 'Salimar'.

"Sage, time's up," Draca notified the last band member as the others went to get their instruments, except Relena who stayed by Lynn.

"I can't believe Sage," Lynn told Relena turning on the amps and adjusting the volume, "calling her 'amica' and in Draca's hearing. Not to mention that he and Adam don't even bother to tell us that they knew Sylvia Noventa as a friend rather than someone who they heard about from the news!"

"I didn't wish to make everyone in the band mad at me and think of me as a traitor. Besides, I thought it would be best if I kept the friendship with Sylvia so that perhaps Heero and Relena would meet up again," Sage whispered in Lynn's ear after having come up behind her unknowingly.

Eyes wide, Lynn looked across the room at the table where Preventer Yuy sat talking with his girlfriend. A grim expression hid Lynn's disgusted emotions toward the man.

_Why bother when he seems content with Sylvia?_ Lynn wondered.

"Lynn, what did Sage say?" Relena spoke up, interrupting Lynn's thoughts.

Shaking her head, Lynn plastered on a smile. "Nothing, just told me to stop talking trash. You better get to your keyboard for it looks like Draca's ready to announce us," Lynn said.

Nodding her agreement, Relena returned to her keyboard but stared at Lynn with questioning eyes. She knew that Lynn was hiding something from her but it would have to wait until later, when the band was back at the Noventa household.

_Just concentrate on playing and ignore the fact that everyone's here. Especially ignore the fact that Sage hid the fact that he and Sylvia are friends,_ Relena told herself, sighing a bit.

**Thank you to: DogDemonK9, Ulitheal, Morrighan of Crimson and Sable (of course), and Lynn-Minmay (as always). Thank you all. It's good to know that people want to read Lena's point of view on the entire event.**


	6. Cool It Now

**It's My Life**

**Okay, as promised, here's ****Lena****'s side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

**Warning: short thing of lyrics, you can just skip over them of course.**

Draca took her position behind the microphone, and took a deep breath before she turned on the microphone and spoke.

"We're back signoras and signores, now it's our final two songs."

Relena watched as the customers began to resume seats either at the tables or at the bar with expressions of anticipation.

"Before we begin, we would like to thank Giorgio for allowing us to play here for your entertainment. Thank you Giorgio, you handsome fellow you! Now, on with the music!" proclaimed Draca, adding a wink to the bartender.

Glancing over at Lynn, Relena caught her eye and nodded before starting up on her short keyboard solo. Then with another curt nod at Lynn, the girls began to sing the chorus.

"I WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD

Kaze wo kakenukete

Nanimo osorezu ni ima yuuki to egao no kakera daite

CHANGE MY MIND

Jounetsu tayasazu ni

Takanaru mirai e te wo nobaseba

Kagayakeru hazu sa IT'S WONDERLAND!"

Pounding on the keyboards, Relena closed her eyes and was transported into her little musical world where the song would enclose about her. In this little world Relena watched her mind's own music video for the song.

Opening her eyes, Relena recalled her attention to where the band was in the music. Fortunately she had done so at that moment or she would have completely missed her entrance with the chorus.

Having noted her lapse, Relena saw Adam give her a questioning look out of the corner of her eye. Inconspicuously, Adam approached Relena until he was right next to her.

"Are you alright?" he shouted over the amps.

"Yeah!" nodded Relena, causing the bass player to quirk an eyebrow. "Seriously Adam, I just got caught up in the music!"

Adam eyed his friend for a moment before he shrugged and returned to his usual spot on the stage. By that time, the song was coming to a close, having ended without Relena's voice occupying the other girls' voices.

The crowd erupted with applause, startling Relena a bit. She glanced about the bar with wide eyes. Relena saw Duo weaving in and out of the crowd asking for a sharpie.

A small smile touched the corners of her mouth. _He really wants our autographs badly, that so amazing!_ Relena thought, her smile growing even broader. _Good old Duo._

"Last song people, then it's closing time," announced Draca, pulling Relena's attention back to the band.

Many people from the crowd groaned in disappointment and Relena joined them, but for a different reason. She knew that the closing song was hers and she really didn't want to sing.

"Sorry," Draca apologized, "rules are rules, we can't do anything about them and neither can you, so please just bare with us."

The crowd started to calm down.

Smiling appreciative at the crowd, Draca continued, "Our last song, amazingly enough, is song in English by our keyboardist, Salimar Reigns! Give her a hand people, for she rarely ever sings!"

Relena wanted nothing more than to pound her head on the keyboard, but she suppressed the urge and instead gave a tight smile.

Sensing her discomfort, Adam gave her a thumbs-up while saying, "Take it away girlfriend."

Grinning at the gesture, Relena gave a quick nod, causing all of the instruments to start up the song. Later the music was united with the voices of everyone but Relena.

No, Relena used the time when she wasn't singing to take a few deep breathes to compose herself. Her song wasn't difficult and best of all it was in English, unlike most of 'For Rel's songs.

Taking one last breath, Relena began her solo.

"I kept racing down the stormy highway,

Searching for the whereabouts of my interrupted dream

Letting all my lied and bitter illusions

Blow my back, with the wind."

Leaning forward so that she could sing into the microphone, Relena kept her eyes closed and felt around on the keyboard for the chords. She never liked to have her eyes open and see peoples' reactions while she sang. After she was done, she would open her eyes for the reactions.

"We're all just lonely hearts in the...

Everyone a child lost in love.

Day by day in the big city

Tears only aggravate thoughts that won't rest.

"Tonight…Hurricane

…I want…Hurricane

…to tell you I love you.

…Tonight…Hurricane

…touch me…Hurricane

…like you mean it.

…Touch! Burning touch!"

Feeling the adrenaline rush taking over, Relena pulled away from the microphone and took a few deep, labored breaths while the rest of the band took over for a few lines.

"I cannot share the pain in your heart

With darting words that merely placate.

I want you to tell me what it is

That makes your eyes cloud over.

"In the big city, our hearts are all torn and tattered,

And we're tired of dancing around each other at night,

So in the big city's empty days,

We waited anxiously for a little warmth.

"Tonight…Hurricane

…I want…Hurricane

…to tell you I love you.

…Tonight…Hurricane

…I want…Hurricane

…to hold you once more.

Touch! Burning touch!"

Relena had only enough time to take a deep breath while Adam and Sage kept the tempo going.

"We're all just lonely hearts in the big city

Everyone a child lost in love.

Day by day in the big city

Tears only aggravate thoughts that won't rest.

"Tonight…Hurricane

…I want…Hurricane

…to tell you I love you.

…Tonight…Hurricane

…touch me…Hurricane

…like you mean it.

Touch! Give me touch!"

Repeating the chorus with the entire band, Relena slowly began to open her eyes.

"Give me touch!"

One last breath.

Burning touch!"

Everyone, literally everyone, stood up and roared in applause for the band. It wasn't a complete surprise to anyone in the band but it was no less exhilarating than when they had first performed for a crowd.

Being the lead vocalist and spokeswoman for the band, Draca was the first to speak to the crowd.

"Thank you all! We're glad we could entertain you tonight, and perhaps we made your evening a bit better," she told them. "As all good things have to come to an end, so do us. Good night folks, hope to see you all some other time."

The crowd began moving towards the doors at a very slow rate. Relena understood that it was closing time and it was going on to one in the morning, as normal so it was natural that not many people would stick around afterwards.

Everyone in the band immediately began taking down his and hers respectable instrument, with Draca assisting Sage since he had the most to take apart; it was a drum set after all.

"That was overwhelming," spoke up Lynn as she disconnected her guitar to the amp then pulled out her guitar case from behind the drum set.

This was another tradition for the band, sharing how they felt after a performance. It gave them a better understanding of each other, getting to know who was a nervous wreck, who thought they could have done better and where. Most other bands, especially instrumental bands, probably didn't have that kind of communication.

"Better than making speeches to a bunch of old men," added Adam teasingly, and Relena knew that was directed at her and Lynn.

The group knew that Lynn had been very vocal in local politics back in France; always making speeches to the old counsel members.

"How about you Draca, how are you doing?" Adam inquired.

"Very good, that was exhilarating! Unbelievable, it's so pressuring to do that for such a large crowd," she answered glancing towards Sage who was placing the bass drum and cymbals on a rolling cart that was off in the back of the bar.

Glancing up from packing her wires, Relena saw that Sage was ignoring Draca's invitation to voice his opinion. Shaking her head, Relena returned to disassembling the keyboard, she needed someone's help with the keyboard itself.

"What about you Sage?" Draca challenged. "Express how you feel after playing in front of such a large crowd."

"Relieved that I don't have to see anyone of them since I sit down the entire time, and just play the drums with my eyes closed," he replied taking the snare drum from Draca.

Passing by Relena as she and Lynn grabbed the keyboard, Sage smirked, "Your turn _Salimar_."

"Personally, I'm still flustered," admitted Relena, still feeling hot in cheeks from her solo. "God, I must still be blushing like mad!"

Putting the keyboard into its case and folding up the stand, Relena placed the items off to the side where she could keep an eye on them while rolling up the cord for the speakers.

"Nah, you're not blushing that badly," reassured a gentle, proper voice that Relena would have recognized anywhere.

_Quatre…_

Swallowing quickly, Relena turned around along with the other 'For Rel' band members to see the entire 'Preventer table' standing off the stage.

_Wow,_ was all Relena could think before she recovered herself. _You're playing the role of Salimar, Relena, don't forget that! _"Good sir, I thank thee," she nodded in a playful manner, keeping an innocent tone to her voice. "What, pray tell, is thy name?"

"Quatre Rabera Winner."

Biting the inside of her lower lip, Relena fought hard against the dimple that threatened to appear on her face.

"Big guy eh?" Lynn remarked in a tone that showed how impressed she was. "Wow, a rich colonist has come to…" There was hint of questioning in her tone.

"He's here for my birthday, and these other people are friends," explained Sylvia and Relena closed her eyes for a moment to keep from cringing.

Even as Sylvia began to introduce each of the preventers, Relena had to maintain a look of indifference and kept her eyes relaxed so that she wouldn't accidentally start glaring at the new Vice Foreign Minister.

Suddenly, Hilde spoke up, "Hilde Schibecker, I'm Duo's girlfriend."

Already aware of this, Relena couldn't help but giggle a bit. Then she covered it up by saying, "Of course you are, that would make perfect sense why you were jealous earlier when he was trying to flirt with us."

Duo put his hands up in the background and began to signal for Relena to not say anything about him trying to flirt with the girls.

"Plus," Relena added reassuringly, "none of us are really interested in having a boyfriend, so have no fear your man is safe from us."

"Yeah, yeah! Speaking of me, I got a marker so can you five sign my collar?" Duo butted in holding out a black sharpie and his collar.

"Sure thing, but who's that guy?!" Lynn inquired, gesturing to Heero despite the fact that she knew who he was.

Taking the marker and collar, Lynn signed her name on it while waiting for someone to answer her question. When no one did she sighed, "Come on, it's not that difficult of a question is it?"

"This is Heero Yuy, my boyfriend," introduced Sylvia with a challenging glare.

Relena wanted to snort, laugh out loud, say 'sure', do anything to Sylvia but she kept every temptation inside in fear that she might inadvertently give away her identity. The situation was even more hilarious to Relena since Sylvia was giving Lynn, of all people, the 'stay away from my man' glare.

Lynn noticed the glare and became quite defensive as she handed Draca the collar and marker. "Wipe that glare from your eyes please girly, I have no intention whatsoever of attempting to steal your man," she informed Sylvia in the Lynn-Draca fashion.

Draca began to sing the chorus of an old R&B song, 'Don't Mess With My Man,' until Relena playfully hit her above the head. Relena liked the song but their concert was over with, so there was to be no more singing until the 10 o'clock.

"Quiet you, you've had all the evening to sing, take a break. Also, hurry up, we got class tomorrow," she reminded Draca, even though it was actually for the preventer groups' benefit. "Do all of you want autographs or is there something else we can do for you all?"

"Could answer a few questions of ours," responded Sally, getting up on the platform and helping Relena put the amps on the floor. Those things were always heavy.

"Not now, we have to hurry up and get everything loaded into our vans. Though we could most likely meet somewhere and answer your questions, that is if you're staying in Verona," Adam elucidated as he began pushing the cart with most of the drum set on it out the back door.

Almost blessing Adam right then and there, Relena held her tongue and instead gave Adam a small wink.

"Heero is staying, so is Hilde and Duo I think," Sylvia countered, much to Relena's displeasure.

_They just can't leave me be, can they?_ she thought, wanting to shake her head ruefully.

"Good luck trying to find us, unless you have a place set where you want to meet already," Draca snorted sounding a bit bitter.

"How about we meet at La Volta Celeste tomorrow for lunch?" suggested Sylvia.

Everyone in the band stopped whatever they were doing and turned to the Vice Foreign Minister with wide eyes, including Relena. Each of them were either shocked or horrified to hear the name 'La Volta Celeste' for it was well known to be a high priced restaurant where the customers would have to wear suites and dresses.

"What?" Sylvia inquired, seeing the questioning stares.

"Do you realize how expensive that place is?" asked Draca, her voice made the restaurant sound scandalous.

_Not even _I_ would go there to eat willingly, _Relena mentally commented as she was handed the collar and marker.

Draca then suggested the band's favorite hang out place, "How about La Terra, a place we can afford to have lunch at?!"

"That's fine," Heero piped up finally.

Raising an eyebrow as she signed the collar, Relena tried hard not to look up with amused eyes. It had taken him _that _long to interrupt?! It was a tad bit on the pathetic side.

Instead, she looked up with a smile while beaming, "Great! Here's your collar, Duo."

Handing the collar to Duo, Relena made certain not to meet his eyes, just in case there was something in them that even someone like Duo would recognize.

"It was great meeting you all, hopefully the rest of you will decide to stick around a little bit and we'll all meet up again," added Relena, being more polite than what she felt, especially toward Sylvia and Heero.

Exchanging farewells and hand shakes, 'For Rel' watched the preventer group exit the bar before speaking up again.

"That was interesting," noted Sage, he had kept out of the conversation as much as possible so that he could see how Sylvia would behave toward his friends.

"Interesting or "interesting"?" questioned Lynn adding in quotations around the second interesting.

"The latter," answered Sage, looking around to see that everything was packed and had been moved out to the vans. "Well, we better get going, no?"

"Agreed," approved the group and they exited out the back door, saying good night to Giorgio.

Inside van number two with Adam and Draca, Relena banged her head against the back of Adam's seat. "I can't believe this! I can't believe this!" she began to chant.

Adjusting her mirror, Draca watched Relena with a look of confusion. "Believe it hon, and you handled yourself quite well for your first encounter with your friends," she said. "So, it can't all be that bad."

"Actually," Adam piped up, "it can be. Sage and I left that box of goodies with photos and Lena's ID bracelets back at the old house in hopes of one day returning. Plus we kind of forgot that we had hidden it hopes that no thief would steal them."

"Idiot!" Draca scolded while Relena groaned in the backseat.

"I'm doomed! Heero's bound to figure it out if he ever returns to that house, and trust me, he will as soon as he realizes that Adam's car was a dead end," Relena reasoned.

Adam sighed in defeat. "Damn, all our fun and games have to end soon."

Relena's eyes snapped open and she bolted into a sitting position. "Adam," she muttered, making Adam veer around in his seat to face her, "you're a genius!"

"Uh?" was all Adam could say before Relena gave him a quick hug and pulled out a mobile cellular phone. She dialed a long distance phone number and waited as the phone began to ring.

Someone answered the phone.

"Frankie? I need a favor, do know anyone who is currently in London?" Relena inquired and listened intently to her cousin's reply. "Jackson? Really…? Do you happen to have his contact number?"

Even from the front seat Adam could hear Frankie's outraged accusations and assumptions.

"Touchy," he remarked.

"No Frankie, I'm not suggesting or hinting that you and Jackson might be a couple. You have made it very clear to me that you will most likely never think of him as anything but a friend, and maybe not even that. I'm only asking because I need him to do me a favor," explained Relena, catching Frankie's curiosity. "I need him to help put in motion a little game I have in mind for Heero Yuy, who, by the way, I just saw tonight as Salimar Reigns."

More outrage yells were heard.

"He was in Verona with my other friends to celebrate his girlfriend, Sylvia Noventa's, birthday. They happened to be at the bar we perform at…" Frankie interrupted with questions of how Relena handled herself, did Heero notice it was her, ect. "I doubt he knew it was me, after all, I do wear a wig and I just got some new contacts and some new clothes."

"Nice clothes too!" Draca added, raising her voice so that Frankie could hear her.

"Yes, that was Draca," Relena nodded with a grin as she pulled out a pen and paper. "Uh-huh, uh-huh…thank you so much Frankie, I owe you big for this." Her cousin seconded that notation. "Yeah, I'll make it up to you at Christmas time. Love you…bye."

Adam turned around in his seat and gave his friend an inquiring eyebrow. "What is your plan Lena and what are going to have Jackson do?"

Putting a finger to her lips, Relena put the phone to her ear again as it began to ring. "Jackson? Hi, this is Frankie's cousin Relena Darlian." The young man seemed to take a couple of minutes to remember Relena before he replied enthusiastic.

"Yeah, the former Vice Foreign Minister," she clarified. "Listen, I need a favor of you, if it's not too much trouble…"

**Thank you to: Ulitheal, Lynn-Minmay, Morrighan of Crimson and Sable, and Lil Dev G. You know what, this is really fun writing 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel' from Relena's POV. It really is!**


	7. A False Past

**It's My Life**

**Okay, as promised, here's ****Lena****'s side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

It was about eight in the morning and Relena was sitting on one of the many campus benches typing on her laptop. She hadn't gotten much sleep the night before since her mind was reeling with possible games she could play on Heero. This just happened to be one of them.

"What're you writing?" Draca inquired, leaning over Relena's shoulder to read.

"'Dear Heero,

I suppose that what I pulled that night wasn't the brightest idea of mine but it worked, that's all that matters to me. May I suggest that you give up in your search for me, for I know that you are most likely exhausted from it and need time to rest? Besides, it is in your best interest to stop now before you get yourself frustrated and in trouble with Lady Une. Remember that I'm not the little 15 year old girl that you knew from a few years back, I've grown up a bit. Wishing you the best,

Relena Darlian-Peacecraft'

"Aw…" Draca cooed after reading the letter out loud, "that's so sweet, is the translation 'I love you but I can't stand the fact that you're dating Sylvia Noventa?'"

Rolling her eyes a bit, Relena sighed in exasperation, "No, I just know that by sending him this letter it's going to make him search even harder for me."

"What if he finds you?" Draca suggested, sitting on the opposite end of the bench.

"Trust me, he's not; at least not unless I want him to. I'm getting help from you guys already, Shun-li, Jackson, and even Jo-jo Alley," Relena explained, pushing up her glasses a bit. She had her contacts in her bag but she didn't want to put them in yet.

Draca's eyebrows rose, signaling the she was impressed. "Even good old Jo-jo is in on this, that's very good. I have one question though, how is Shun-li helping you out?" she questioned.

Relena hit the send button after typing instructions for Shun-li to copy and paste the letter, print, and delete the e-mail afterwards. "That's right, you guys don't know. Well, I helped get Shun-li a job as a secretary for Lady Une, Head of the Department of Prevention. So, Heero'll get the letter from her whenever he checks in with Lady Une."

Nodding in understanding, a twinkle began to gleam in Draca's eyes but it soon vanished when the Can-Can jingle began to shrill through the air.

Jumping from the unexpected noise, Relena pulled out her cell phone from her bag and flipped it open.

"What?" she asked.

"Gave him the information, Lena, now what?" replied Jackson's voice and it made Relena smile. So one of the Preventers did return to London and now everything was set in motion.

"Nothing," she answered with a huge grin, "but lay low for a while, okay?" Turning to Draca, Relena gave her a thumb's up while trying to keep herself from bouncing in her seat. "Thank you so much Jack, I owe you big time for this!"

"Hey, it's your game, I'm just providing some of the clues," smiled Jackson. "Take care, you hear, Lena!"

"Aye-ai, captain!" mocked Relena before hanging up and giving Draca a high five. "This is great; everything is going according to plan right now."

Glancing at her watch, Draca got up and slammed Relena's laptop closed. "Come on, we got to go catch up with Lynn then get to class," she announced as Relena began to put her things in her bag.

Rising to her feet, Relena let Draca link arms with her, an action between friends that had disappeared several centuries ago but Draca felt the need to somehow be connected with the person she walks with. It gave her a sense that her companion was paying attention to her, something Relena could appreciate.

"So does he still treat you like a fifteen year old, high school girl?" Draca spoke up out of the blue.

"Who?" Relena replied, trying to dodge the issue of Heero. She really wasn't in the mood to talk about her love-interest, especially not after seeing him the night before with Sylvia Noventa, and introduced as Sylvia's _boyfriend_.

Getting the distinct sense that Relena wanted to change the subject Draca was willing to leave the issue of Heero alone except she wanted answers. "Lena, we've been friends for years, and I know you really don't want to talk about him but you've got to open up to me and the others sooner or later hon. Otherwise, it'll tear at you on the inside and we won't be able to know what to do to help you," Draca reasoned gently.

Seeing Lynn approaching them, Relena turned to Draca with an imploring expression. "Please, let me explain later and not out in public where someone might overhear," she pleaded and Draca complied.

"Hey girls, ready to sit through some lectures about music theory?" Lynn teased, leading the way to the door. "You know how they say that if you know at least one of the romantic languages the others will be a bit easier to grasp? Well, I can assure you that it's a lie, at least for me. I can't understand Spanish at all!"

While Lynn was complaining about her inability to grasp the Spanish language, Draca opened the door and promptly hit someone with it.

"Oh my God!" she exclaimed when she saw one of Relena's friends, Hilde, on the floor holding a hand to her forehead. "I am so sorry about that I wasn't looking where I was going."

Noticing that there were three vanilla folders on the ground with papers sticking out of them, Lynn bent down and picked them up while Relena took care of the gawking students.

"Everyone's alright here, we're all alive and unharmed except for maybe a bruise or two," Relena told the curious students.

Kneeling in front of Relena's friend, Draca began to coax Hilde to removing her hand from her forehead to see the damage. Not needing to be told twice, Hilde removed her hand and the shock was written plainly in her eyes.

Relena hoped that Draca and Lynn had remembered not to refer to Relena by her real name or any variant of it, being discovered was the last thing Relena needed.

"Oh hey, you're one of the girls we met last night at the bar!" pointed out Lynn after Draca was done poking at Hilde's head.

_Oh no…please don't let them call me 'Relena'. Please let them remember to call me 'Salimar',_ pleaded Relena as she returned her attention to Hilde.

"Yes I am," Hilde replied, confirming Lynn's earlier comment.

"Was your name like Hildra or Hildre?" Relena asked, pretending not to know Hilde's name. She was acting the role of 'Salimar' after all, so she couldn't act like she knew or remembered too much about her friends from the war.

"Hilde actually," she corrected. To Relena, the underlining tone of irritation was very noticeable but to the casual listener Hilde's tone could have been categorized as polite.

"Sorry, it's just we met so many people last night that we just can't keep the names straight except for Quatre Winner and Duo Maxwell, your boyfriend right?" explained Relena, feeling a blush coming to her cheeks despite the fact that she had gotten her friend's name wrong on purpose.

"I guess I can buy that," smiled Hilde, her voice was now sympathetic.

_Good old Hilde, she can be so understanding in the right situations,_ Relena thought, fighting back a smile.

"Way to go Salimar, just go and get her name all messed up!" commented Draca, throwing Relena a playful glare. One of the corners of Draca's mouth was ever so slightly twitching upward into a smirk.

More than willing to duel with words, Relena retorted in a good-natured manner, "Oh and you would have gotten her name correct! Hn, I think you would have probably guessed something more along the lines of Sally or something."

Relena knew how horrible Draca was with names. When Draca first introduced herself to Relena she had called Relena 'Renee,' so, of course, Draca would have gotten Hilde's name wrong too.

"Actually…yeah I would've, but you saved me the trouble," grinned Draca; she wasn't going to deny her inability to put names with faces.

Lynn stepped forward and handed Hilde three vanilla folders, which Hilde took back but not without some resistance from Lynn's grasp. The resistance on Lynn's half didn't go unnoticed by Relena; there was something in those folders that had caught Lynn's interest.

"Thank you Lynn," Hilde said. Apparently Relena wasn't the only person to have noted Lynn's reluctance.

"What are you doing looking up information on us when all you have to do is ask us?" questioned Lynn.

_Information about us…our files!_ Relena realized. She could have groaned at her stupidity, of course Heero would have had someone check into the 'For Rel' band's background.

For the most part Relena was confident about her forged files but there was always the possibility that Heero would dig deeper into their histories, like to go the school listed in the 'Salimar Reigns' file only to find that no such girl every went to school in Korea.

"This is for official business dealing with a missing person that, the agency I work for, is trying to find," claimed Hilde.

Relena's eyes narrowed as Lynn's turned cold. There was no mistaking who that "missing person" was. Draca, being herself, was the only one out of the three girls to be completely confident that Hilde wasn't going to find anything in those files.

"Quite fascinating really, eh girls?" teased Draca with a playful smile as she turned to face Relena and Lynn. She gave them a conspiratorial wink that made both girls relax.

"Very," nodded Lynn, joining in the discussion. "What kind of person?" It was more a rhetorical question but Hilde would never have known that.

"A very special individual that happened to run away about five months back, with the help of someone from the outside," answered Hilde.

This time Relena recalled herself to her role as 'Salimar' was remained unaffected by the information. Instead she proceeded to probe a little bit more information out of Hilde.

"Special…how? Was he, or she, a Princess or perhaps some billionaire of some sort, like your friend Quatre? A political person or even a former terrorist from the war?" interrogated Salimar with a hint of humor in her voice. It was all of the above except for the last option; Relena knew she was no terrorist, unless she had an evil twin running about somewhere that she was unaware of.

"A politician actually, and it was a woman. She is 18 years old, blond hair that is waist length, blue eyes, and in great shape," described Hilde glancing over at Lynn.

As assumed the night before, the preventers were assuming that Lynn was Relena. Taking offense to the indirect accusation, Lynn took a step back and stared wide-eyed at Hilde.

"That description sounds vaguely familiar," muttered Draca, pretending to ponder where she knew that description from.

"It should, that's the description of Vice Foreign Minister Relena Darlian," proclaimed Hilde getting a unison gasp from all three of the girls.

"No!" breathed Relena, it was really hard to act like she was surprised.

"Why, did any of you know her by any chance?"

Turning to Draca and Lynn, Relena exchanged glances with them before turning back to Hilde to somewhat answer the question without having to go into too much detail, yet. They needed to plan out a history to explain to Hilde otherwise this little game would be come to a conclusion all too soon.

"Hey girls," yelled Adam, poking his head out of one of the lecture halls, "have you checked the time recently? You're going to be late for class!"

Draca glanced at her watch and realized that Adam was right, they were going to be late if they stood around chit-chatting much longer.

"We've got to go, we'll come talk to you later, just stay on campus," Draca instructed Hilde before jogging down the hallway with Lynn and Relena. They weaved their way through the masses of students to their Music Theory class.

* * *

Taking notes during Music Theory, Relena was talking with Shun-li through instant messenger. It was an ancient tool and there were several advancements made to the messaging industry, but the old instant messenger was the only way to talk with someone without having to use your real name or seeing the person.

"So, what did your Grandfather, the Marquis, say about you guys playing for that fundraiser?" Shun-li wrote.

"He said it was a great idea as long as we didn't do anything too drastic like come in as 'women or men who worked the streets'," Relena replied.

"Hold on, I have to go. _He_'s here," Shun-li announced.

Looking up from her laptop, Relena took notes that were on the white screen and listened to what the professor was explaining.

Lynn, Draca, and her had arrived in class in time for the lecture to start, so they didn't have time to start planning on a history to tell Hilde. The planning was going to have to wait until after class as neither Draca nor Lynn had sent an instant message to Relena.

"I gave him the letter that you sent to him," Shun-Li informed Relena, appearing out of nowhere.

"Thank you so much, I promise to repay you somehow," promised Relena. She didn't know quite how she was going to repay any of her friends back but she was going to, sooner or later.

"No problem, anyways you got me this job with that anonymous phone call," winked Shun-Li, sending a little animated picture of an eye winking. "Give my regards to Adam, Sage, and the girls."

"I will," assured Relena, logging off so that she could listen to the rest of the class and not get Shun-li in trouble with Lady Une. Relena didn't want to lose her only ally in the preventers.

When class ended, Lynn was the first to speak up, "May I suggest a history to tell?"

"Please do," Draca replied, packing up her laptop.

"We tell our history with Relena but this time we just add in an extra person. Can you do that Lena? Just kind of insert your new person into our past with some added little stories that the rest of us elaborate on?" Lynn suggested, looking at Relena to see if she could handle such a responsibility.

"Yeah," Relena nodded. "Yeah, that I can do."

"Okay, then," Draca declared, clapping her hands once, "it's settled. We stick with our pasts, Relena adds in her little snippets, we confirm it, and Hildra…"

"Hilde," Relena corrected.

Draca rolled her eyes before finishing, "Hilde will be none the wiser. Now, let's go get some coffee before we go tell our tale of you to _Hilde_."

With an uneasy smile, Relena followed Draca out of the row of chairs and down the stairs until Lynn caught up with her, placing a hand on Relena's shoulder. "Lena, are you alright about all of this? I mean we can always just tell your friend that truth and not even bother with the lying scheme," Lynn assured.

Licking her lips, Relena shook her head. "I've come this far, Lynn, I'm not turning back now. We'll play this and the preventers will disappear, never to bother us again after this," Relena answered in a more confident tone then what she felt.

"If you say so," shrugged Lynn with a smile. "Let's go get your friend some coffee; she's going to need it with what we're going to put her through."

"That she will," Relena agreed as Lynn draped an arm about her shoulder.

**Thank you to: Ulitheal, DogDemonK9, Lil Dev G, Lynn-Minmay, darkfairy88, Morrighan of Crimson and Sable, Briar Noir, and Friends1004.**


	8. Interview with Hilde

It's My Life

**Okay, as promised, here's ****Lena****'s side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

"Lena, how does your friend take her coffee?" Draca inquired as she carried her and Hilde's coffee over to the sugar and half/half packets.

Twisting open her bottle of Coke, Relena replied, "She likes it with no sugar and lots of milk."

Opening Hilde's coffee, Draca poured in one packet of half/half and stirred. "Is that enough?"

Glancing over, Relena shook her head. "_Lots_ of milk," she repeated. "So, another packet and half would probably be fine, I think."

"Okay," shrugged Draca, adding the packet and half of half/half.

"Here you guys go, pizzas for everyone," Lynn announced, exchanging two pizzas with Relena for her drink. "This is a Milky Way Cappuccino, right?"

"Of course, we weren't going to torture you with some chocolate caramel," assured Relena, balancing the two pizzas on one hand, one pizza on top of another.

Lynn tapped Relena's shin with her foot as a sort of playful kick. "When did you become so teasing? Uh? It certainly wasn't while you were in politics, trust me," teased Lynn.

Relena returned the playfulness, she had become able to once again decipher between her friends' teasing moments and when they were serious. At that moment Lynn was being playful and she was inviting Relena to be playful as well.

"Well, let's go pay your friend a little visit and put our little play in action. The curtain is rising and the imperfect actors are needed on stage," Draca declared decisively.

"Hilde hunting we go," sighed Lynn, leading the way out of the food court, holding the door open for Relena and Draca.

Leading the way around campus, Relena was the first to spot her friend sitting at one of the picnic tables, intently reading the files she had been carrying before.

"Well, let's go say 'hi'," grinned Draca, moving ahead of Lynn and Relena. "Hey Hilde, here," Draca greeted Hilde, startling the girl. Setting down the cup of coffee in front of the preventer, Draca took a seat next to Hilde.

Relena watched how Draca's head snapped up and she put a hand to her heart. She had to laugh inwardly as she approached the table with Lynn at her side. Relena had seen the expression of fright several times on her friend's face when she had startled Hilde in the dark.

While in politics Relena had developed a sort insomnia disorder where she would have difficulty sleeping due to the stress of the day or the next day, or even just the stress of all the paperwork that needed to be done. So, to keep herself awake Relena would drink lots of coffee and sometimes take short walks around the house at night. During her walks she would bump into Hilde, scaring her.

"It's only you three," sighed Hilde. "You know you really shouldn't sneak up on people!"

"Sorry but it was an open opportunity," apologized Draca with an equally apologetic smile which Relena had to acknowledge resembled her own smile. "We brought some lunch and coffee for you since I doubt you've had anything to eat since you woke up."

"Thank you," nodded Hilde, taking a plate from Relena, and than set it down in front of her while Lynn took a seat across from her and Salimar across from Draca.

"Still doing research on us?" noted Relena, nodding towards the files that laid out open. _I hope Rickey did a really great job on the forging._

"Yeah," Hilde confirmed, "interesting histories you three and classes. Want to tell me how you three each knew Relena?"

Now was the moment of truth, Relena really hoped that they could pull off this little performance.

Taking a sip of her coke to calm her nerves, Relena answered, "We knew her from the St. Gabriel Institution; all four of us were in the same class. I guess we were the first to actually see that Relena wasn't exactly dumb to why most of the people at school liked her at all, they knew nothing of the real her."

It was true; most of the other students at the institution hadn't known Relena for who she really was and yet they called her 'friend'. Relena hadn't been as blind as some people believed to how her classmates thought of her as the perfect role model of refinement and pose. The fact that her piers held her at such a high, metaphoric pedestal had always unnerved Relena.

She wasn't perfect at anything and she would always be the first person to say so.

As for money, well…that was the reason as to why so many students tried so hard to fall into Relena's good graces and be titled as 'Relena's Friend'.

"Being me, I was the first to approach her during class and introduce myself," interjected Draca swallowing a bit of her pizza. "She was a bit surprised that I even bothered to ask her for what she thought of our project that we were assigned to do rather than ask Lynn, she sat right in front of me. It was a bit humorous; that must have been the first time that someone actually included her into a bit of gossip that didn't consist of guys or having someone try to be proper."

Biting into her pizza, Relena had to somehow keep from laughing. What Draca had said about Draca being the first person to talk to her about something that didn't include guys or proper behavior.

_I don't believe discussing opinions about a class project can be considered 'gossip' though, _Relena thought with a smile._ And she _was_ the first person to actually ask for my honest opinion._

"Which was impossible for Draca," Lynn spoke up, "she could never be proper much less formal. Always gave the nuns nicknames and gave Relena the nickname Lena, which was something no one else at school even did. Than there was the fact that we didn't really give a damn of her money that Relena must've found a bit odd."

Taking a sip of soda this time, Relena covered her mouth to wipe away the bit of coke and to hide a grin.

"Most definitely, since those other girls were always talking about her, not saying nothing mean or anything, but just talking about her and how lucky she was all the time," agreed Draca.

She felt like blushing, Relena truly felt like blushing and crying. It was amazing how simple statements could make Relena realize how well her friends knew her and how much they really cared for her as a person.

_I should say something to let them know how much they have effected me, _Relena decided. "In a way, it was Draca who got us all together with becoming Relena's friends," she stated, giving Draca a meaningful glance.

Draca's playful smirk softened to a genuine and larger smile. She may not ever say it but she was truly flattered and moved by Relena's indirect compliment.

"Then the guys came around after that one horse incident," Relena added with a bit of giggle as she recalled that day.

"Guys?" echoed Hilde.

"Adam and Sage," replied Lynn. "During class one day, I kind of fell off a horse and the boys were the first ones to actually take action by carrying me off to the nurse's office. When Relena came to visit with these two, they met Adam and Sage there. That's when we all really began becoming really close to each other."

"Now is it Adam or Adem?" inquired Hilde, taking out a notepad to take down some of these notes.

Having an idea of what Hilde was trying to get at, Relena answered, "Adam, with an A."

"Thank you. What about your band name, 'For Rel'? How is that spelt?" continued Hilde.

"R-e-l," replied Lynn.

"Adam's idea since that was his nickname for Relena. When we began the band it was around the time that Relena ran off, so when Adam heard about it he wanted to somehow remember Relena somehow. Thus the title 'For Rel' instead of 'For Real', r-e-a-l," jumped in Draca. "Him and Relena were very close actually, but then he and Sage had to move to Miami, Florida because of family business."

"Yeah, then it was the domino effect from there," included Relena, turning her eyes downcast. It hurt to think about how her friends all had to leave her, especially before the time when she really needed them.

"Which reminds me Salimar, why did you finish high school in Korea when your grandfather was in Moscow?" questioned Hilde, looking up from the notepad to watch the reaction to the question.

Holding her calm and reserve, Relena met Hilde's gaze, something most people in her situation wouldn't do and Relena knew that.

"My grandfather was and still is a busy man, Hilde. He had no time to spend with me without being on call, so he suggested that I go to Korea to finish my schooling while staying with one of his friends. All he wanted was me to be able to stay in touch with others my age as well as learn to be the best I could, and boy did I. Never want to go through that again! Going to school for 15 hours a day was no camping trip," explained Relena, improvising the entire explanation as she finished off her pizza and drowned down her coke.

"That explains quite a bit. Can you tell me the name of the family you were staying with?"

"I was staying with the Lim family," responded Relena, gathering up the empty plates and getting up to throw them away. She recalled the name written in her forged files.

Dumping the empty plates, Relena took a moment to take a breather and recollect herself again. They just had to pull off this little act and hopefully they would wrap it up fairly soon.

Exhaling, Relena turned to return to the table. As she approached she heard Draca saying to Hilde, "My Uncle is William Ison actually, an oil man in Texas though he's quite a genius."

Sensing an ending to the interrogation, Relena didn't even bother to sit down. Standing by the table, Relena waited for Hilde to conclude their interview.

"Again, thank you, each of you, for your time and for answering these questions for me," thanked Hilde, getting up and gathering up the files before heading to her jeep.

Sitting down at the table, Relena buried her face in her hands and heaved a sigh of relief.

"Aw…it wasn't really that bad now was it Lena?" teased Draca, reaching over to try and pry Relena's hands away from her face.

Taking her hands away from her face, Relena just smiled weakly. "I'm just relieved that that is over and done with," she admitted.

"Well, we have class to go to, so let's get going," suggested Lynn with an air of decidedness as she got up from the table.

* * *

That night, while leaning over her Perspectives in Literature text book there was a knock on Relena's door.

"Enter," she replied automatically, not even bothering to look up from her work, she had a ten-paged, perspective paper due the next week.

Quietly coming into the room was Draca and Lynn, followed by Sage and Adam. At first Relena ignored them until each one of them sat down on her bed and Adam closed her book.

Getting the feeling that her friends had something that they really wanted to discuss, Relena looked up with innocent eyes and glanced between each of her friends. "What's wrong?" she inquired.

"Lena, we're your friends and as your friends you should open up to us about how you feel with meeting up with all your old friends, Heero, and talk to us about how it was before you ran away," Adam answered, putting an arm around Relena's shoulders and flashing her that winning smile that he had.

He was right, she should open up to them beyond the tale of what happened the night she ran away.

"What would you guys like to hear?" Relena offered.

"Let's start with the present," suggested Lynn. "How do you feel after having encountered the preventers and Sylvia Noventa?"

Relena leaned back into her pillows to get comfortable while Adam stayed by her side and moved with her. It was going to be a long night of telling stories but it was going to be worth it to Relena, after all, a person had to vent somehow, someway.

"Well, I feel a bit uneasy about it but not to the point where I think any of them will be able to figure out that Salimar and I are the same person," she responded with a bit of a sigh. "It was awkward to talk to them without them knowing that it was I, Relena Darlian-Peacecraft, who they were talking to. I mean I was right under their noses the entire time and they never saw through it."

The group nodded in understanding.

"What about Heero? What do you feel or think about Heero?" Sage questioned.

"Heero…I feel…I feel a bit confused about him right now," Relena answered honestly. "I am just confused about him.

"Ah…well, we have time to help you figure it all out, but for right now we simply have to talk about that fundraiser gig your grandpa arranged for us," Draca spoke up, pulling everyone away from the subject of Heero and the preventers. For the time being.

**Thank you to: Ulitheal, Morrighan of Crimson and Sable, Lynn-Minmay, lil dev g, and DogDemonK9. I think every one of you guys as reviewed all of my chapters or almost all of my chapters. Wow, thank you so much!**


	9. Fundraiser

It's My Life

**Okay, as promised, here's ****Lena****'s side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

**Okay, there is one lyric in here but I didn't format it like I did in 'For Rel'. Still, I don't own the song 'Bop', it belongs to the artist (Dan Seals) and the publishing company who has legal rights of the lyrics. **

**Also, just a little note, I got confused between SVU and SUV, I'm hoping the way I have it in here is the correct way (the van spelling).**

She was getting hyper and Relena never got hyper, she got in teasing or playful moods but never hyper. Yet, there she was sitting in the rented SUV with Sage and Draca, trying to keep the peace, while getting a natural sugar rush. It had been well over two hours since she last had a soda to drink but she was bouncing in the back seat, using the bass amp as an armrest while singing a remake of 'New York, New York'.

She knew why she was so hyper, it was because she was excited for they were in New York-_Go figure,_ she thought-and 'For Rel' was about to put on the greatest performance so many representatives, national leaders, and wealthy people had ever experienced. All due to her grandfather, who she hadn't been able to see informally since her days as Queen of the World Nation.

"Relena, you okay back there?" laughed Sage, glancing at her via the rearview mirror.

"Just excited," she smiled broadly, leaning forward to crank up the volume as the track changed to 'Bop' by Dan Seals. "Put on your bobber sox, baby, roll up your old blue jeans." She was singing, yes, but she didn't care because she wanted to sing, do anything to show her enthusiasm.

Grooving in the front seat, Draca joined in with Relena's singing, "There's a band playing down at the armory that knows what rock and roll music means."

Shrugging, Sage decided to join with the singing, "I want to ride in your fifty-five T-bird, back to some old memories. I ain't after your body, baby, I just want you to dance with me."

Pulling up to the hotel where the fundraiser was taking place, Sage parked the SUV in the back, following the directions Marquise Weridge had given. Turning the car off, Sage pulled the key back a little bit more so that the radio would remain on while they unloaded.

"Hey guys, what're you listening to?" Adam called, leaning out the window of the second SUV with a goofy smile.

"I want to BOP with you baby, all night long. I want to BOP the night away. I wanna make it a night like it used to be when our hearts were young and free," Relena sang to him as she slammed shut the back door.

"I want to BOP with you baby, all night long. I wanna bebop with ya baby 'til the break of dawn. I want to BOP with you baby, all night long," Adam joined in while the other three continued to sing.

Having gotten out of the car, Lynn was already aware of what the group was singing, so she entered on the next verse. "I got an old photograph in my pocket. We were still in our teens."

Sage answered with the next line, "Lord knows I look a lot older now, but you still look the same to me. Honey you don't ever laugh like you used to and I don't want to see you blue."

Adam interjected, "If you ain't busy tonight and you think it's all right, this is what I want to do." He added a playful wink to Relena before he went to the trunk to grab the drum set.

"I want to BOP with you baby, all night long. I want to BOP the night away. I wanna make it a night like it used to be-oh-when our hearts were young and free. I want to BOP with you baby, all night long. I wanna bebop with ya baby 'til the break of dawn. I wanna make it a night like it used to be," everyone sang as they unloaded the equipment from the SUVs.

"Let's twist and shout, just like in the good old days. Baby, watch out, you know I just can't stand it when you look at me that way," Draca sang, singing the notes about an octave higher than Dan Seals had.

With half the group laughing and the other half trying not to laugh, the group finished the song with the chorus repeating itself until it faded away.

Out of the back door came a security guard who eyed the band up and down in suspicion.

"What are you doing here? Don't you know that this is a _reserved_ event?" he informed them.

Calmly, Relena approached the guard while Sage turned off the radio and vehicle in the background. Pulling out the band's contract for the event, Relena handed it to the guard, explaining that they were there to play for the event.

Reading over the contract, the guard found it to be true, the group was contracted to play at the fundraiser, something he hadn't seen during his 35 years of being a guard.

"Okay, you're cleared, just keep it down while the orchestra is still performing and don't cause mischief," the guard warned with a stern glance at each band member, specifically the male members, before retreating back inside, away from the chilly weather.

"Alright, let's get this stuff inside, we're on in twenty minutes," stated Sage, grabbing the keyboard stand and handing it to Draca who gave him a questioning look. "It's light so I figured you could handle it."

The others grimaced as the sound of a palm hitting a cheek was heard along with the mutter, "Jerk."

"Was that really necessary!" yelled Sage, rubbing his cheek a bit. "Oh yeah, Lynn, she _really_ likes me, she just can't keep her hands off me."

Lifting out the keyboard amp, Sage rolled it inside before anyone could say anything to him. He wasn't looking for any words of comfort, yet no one in the group was willing to let their evening be ruined by foul feelings.

"I'll go talk to him," offered Relena, taking the two bags of cymbals. The bags were heavier than they looked but not too heavy that Relena couldn't carry them inside until she set them down.

Inside, Relena was a bit taken back at how crowded it was with chairs and folded tables, not to mention supplies for the kitchen staff and all the other instrument cases for the orchestra. Shaking herself out of her amazement, Relena headed over to the area Sage was dropping off the amp and where Draca was stomping away from.

Passing Draca easily, Relena stopped Sage with a bag of cymbals before he had a chance to slip past her.

"We need to talk," she told him firmly, leaving no room for protests.

"Oh okay," Sage sighed, following Relena back to the amp. "Sorry that I lost it out there Relena, it won't happen again, promise."

Setting down the bag of cymbals, the girl gave her friend a dubious look. "I don't really care that you were a bit taken back by her slapping you, but you must understand Sage, that when we tell you that Draca _does_ like you we're not lying."

Now it was Sage's turn to give the dubious look. "Oh really, how is slapping someone a sign that they 'like you'?" he demanded.

Chuckling a bit, Relena shook her head before giving Sage a comforting hug. "My poor, misguided friend, Draca didn't slap you because she likes-maybe she did-but it was rather that you had indirectly insulted her by giving her the keyboard stand and telling her that since it was light you thought she could carry it. The slap had nothing to do with her not liking you but instead with you being a jerk," explained Relena.

Over Relena's shoulder, Sage brought up his hand and slapped his forehead. "Idiot!" he muttered.

"Not quite, as I said earlier, 'misguided'," corrected Relena. "Which, trust me, is much better than an idiot."

Laughing in an ironic way, Sage shook his head, "Whatever would we do without you, Lena? You just know what to say and how to say things that just make everything seem alright."

"Hey, you two going to help us, or just stand there in each others' arms?" teased Lynn as she carried her guitar case with Adam behind her lugging the keyboard case.

"Group hug!" he cried.

Smiling into Sage's shoulder for a second, Relena let go of her friend and spun around to her other friends. "If you two want a hug too, all you have to do is ask, as always," she grinned.

"Hurry up you two, we still have several a lot more percussion stuff to get out of here, two more amps, another guitar, and four microphone stands," listed Adam, setting down the keyboard off to the side so that no one would trip over it.

"Well, what are we waiting for, let's go," smiled Relena.

"Hey Lena, do you have any suggestions on how I could perhaps get back into Draca's 'good graces'?" Sage inquired, following Relena out of the back area.

"Yeah, apologize in your own, unique way," Relena suggested, returning to the cold to grab the other amp Adam had taken out of the trunk.

Wheeling it inside, Relena found Marquise Welitz waiting to speak to them.

"Ah you're here," he stated, sizing up Relena, or rather her alter ego Salimar.

"Yes sir, we're just unloading the last of our equipment. Whenever the orchestra is done playing we'll start setting up out in the ballroom," Relena assured him with her charming smile. Her smile alone, she was told, could melt any cold heart and ease any uneasiness. Although Relena didn't quite believe that to be true, she smiled anyway.

The stressed features on Marquise Welitz's face softened as he sighed in relief. "It's good to know that you can take care of all of this by yourselves and have everything under control," he commented as Draca came in with the snare drum case and a tom case slung over her shoulders, followed by Lynn rolling in the last amp.

"We do have everything under control, however I would like to cover a checklist of items we were promised that would be provided for us," Relena told the host and could see the tension returning to his features.

"Very well," he nodded, pulling out a slip of paper with a list of items. "We have your five microphones, I hope you have the stands."

"We do," she reassured him.

Nodding, Marquise Welitz continued to read off the list. "The three ear piece microphones are in this box. Please do be careful with them, they're on loan specifically for this occasion alone and I really don't want to have to pay for damages," he warned 'Salimar', handing her the box that contained the special microphones.

Opening up the box to find the three ear pieces well intact, Relena quickly assured the host that no damage was going to be done to them and the piece would only be out for at least one song, perhaps more.

"I have arranged for one of the trumpet players to play with you and two of the percussionists from the orchestra to assist you. The piano in the ballroom is a magnificent one and recently tuned," the Marquise finished.

"Perfect, then everything is in place," Relena glanced over her shoulder to find that everything was inside and the others were starting to get the instruments out of their cases. "We'll be ready shortly, once we get all of Sage's cymbals set up."

Glancing out into the ballroom to see how far the orchestra had progressed, Marquise Welitz inquired, "How long will that take you?"

"A few moments," Sage answered, finishing assembling his ride cymbal.

"Now, if you will excuse me, I must get my cords and keyboard out to be set up. Is there an outlet near by so that we may plug our amps and keyboard in?" Relena questioned, kneeling down in her black skirt, provided by Lynn, to unzip her case.

"Yes, there is one directly behind you, easily accessed if you have an extension cord…"

"We have several," Lynn spoke up, holding up the long blue cord for the Marquise to see.

"Fantastic!" Clapping his hands in decisiveness, Marquise Welitz glanced out at the orchestra and noted how the orchestra were standing up to take their bow. "Show time."

Cursing under her breath for lack of time, Relena grabbed her cords and extension cord in one hand; she was more than capable of setting up her keyboard connections.

Stepping aside, Relena let the members of the orchestra begin to take the equipment out into the ballroom for set up. There were four members who were helping out: the trumpet player, two percussionists, and an extra clarinet.

Standing in the back, the group waited for Marquise Welitz to introduce them to the audience.

"Now, I would like to have everyone's attention," he announced, "I would like to introduce a small collection of talented musicians who have the honor of performing for all of you tonight. They are from Verona, Italy and are here in New York for this one night; the band 'For Rel' with Draca Ison, Sage Cole, Lynn Voc, Adam Cole, and Salimar Reigns."

The band entered the ballroom in the order they were introduced, as to not confuse anyone. Ignoring the crowd for the time being, Relena found the outlet and immediately plugged in the extension cord and a multi-outlet device.

With that taken care of she made her way to the piano, saying 'thank you' to the orchestra members who set everything up.

"No problem," one of them assured before they went in back to retrieve their music.

Relena stopped at the grand piano which stood off to the side. It had been a long time since she had touch a real piano, but Relena required it on one of the songs for the distinctive sound only a real piano can generate.

Hesitantly placing her fingers on the ivory keys, Relena took a deep breath before playing the C Major Blues scale. It truly did sound magnificent. It was such a rich sound and the bass sounded superb with its low voices.

Satisfied, Relena went to the keyboard and plugged in her pedal. Then connected her keyboard and amp to the outlet device, and plugged her last cord between the amp and keyboard. Turning on the keyboard and amp, she made certain that everything was in order and that the volume was adequate for the space they were in.

Done with her tuning, Relena glanced around and found everyone else ready to begin, even the trumpet and extra percussionists.

Picking up the microphone that was left for her on the amp, Relena slide it into her stand and turned it on. Tapping it a few times, she knew that it was working, and turned it off again.

Turning to Lynn and Adam, Relena indicated to her keyboard for them to tune and both shook their heads. Since Adam was the closest, he came up to her and whispered, "We had tuned while you were talking with the Marquise guy."

"Oh…smart move," Relena nodded, suddenly awoken by the magnified sound of Draca's voice.

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the entire 'For Rel' band we would like to express our thank yous to Marquis Weridge for persuading Marquis Welitz to have us perform for you tonight. Thank you, gentlemen," Draca announced. "Normally we would sing all of our original songs but for tonight we shall be like a live jukebox for your entertainment."

Snorting a bit at the analogy, Relena covered her mouth with her hand and to shake her head. When she stopped shaking her head, Relena got her first look at the crowd.

It was a rather huge group, no bigger than the ones she was in when she had to go to fundraisers, but now she was performing for them instead of enjoying with them. What a change it was for her.

Scanning the room Relena's caught sight of a young man with an unusual hair style where his bangs hung in front of his face.

_Trowa!_ she realized as a sense of panic began to take over her. _That means Quatre's here and if Quatre's here then Sylvia and Heero are here as well. Oh no…_

"Let's start off with some major classics!" stated Lynn as she signaled the band to start up.

_Let's just go home,_ Relena suggested silently, as her eyes fell upon the person she dreaded meeting ever again, Heero Yuy.

**Thank you to: Liz (who succeeded in making me blush, quite the accomplishment since I rarely ever blush), Lynn-Minmay, Ulitheal, Morrighan of Crimson and Sable, and DogDemonK9 (sorry that I made you hungry for pizza and pop. Drat! Now you've made me hungry for pizza-I already have the pop.)**

**Thanks a lot you guys, you all are great and well…to put it quite bluntly, made me feel very good about my works despite my horrible grammar and spelling problems. Plus, I live to please and I seem to be succeeding. Thanks. Catch you guys next time.**


	10. Showing Talent

It's My Life

**Okay, as promised, here's ****Lena****'s side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

**NOTE: For anyone who would like to know, I've got a new GW fic out, An Understanding Love; another Heero/Relena story. Thought some of you would like to know.**

They started with the drums and then the bass, electric, and keyboards joined in.

_Focus!_ Relena told herself, forcefully pulling her eyes away from Heero.

"Can you move it like this?" Draca sang, recalling Relena to what the band was playing.

Relena and Lynn responded with, "I can shake it like that!" Repeating two more times.

"Come on ladies rock the party! Shake your body dance on the party!" all three girls cried out before the band got quieter so that Adam could sing over all of the instruments.

Vocals switched over to Sage and Relena had to smile as he sang. They had found only one recording of the song and Sage did everything possible to imitate the man's voice from the recording.

When Sage was done, the girls did another round of call and response with the chorus. After the chorus there were three down notes that the entire instrumental part of the band did together then continued with the instrumental sound for a bit before the song switched back over to Sage.

Adam moved over to Relena, as much as his chord to his amp would allow, and began to act as though he were the one singing the song instead of Sage. Relena just shook her head at her friend's playful, gay mood while keeping track of where the band was in the music.

That was the great thing, in Relena's opinion, about playing in a band that sang, if anyone got lost it was easy to get back on track. Whereas if there was no singing and if a person got lost then sooner or later the rest of the band would be lost due to missed cues.

Soon enough the song came to an end with a fading effect and Relena hit the last chord as Sage pounded the closing bass beat. Unconsciously, Relena had let out a sigh of relief and drew in a deep breath as a small, secretive smile started to form, until the sound of the unenthused applause came to her ears. Of course she heard the few enthusiastic clasps but those were outnumbered by the higher class polite applause.

Having lived in that world of high class all her life and knowing exactly what those polite applauses translated into—"Great, you played, now leave"—Relena decided to not have it be that way. No, the higher class audience was going to get involved whether they wanted to or not.

"That sounds weak people. Also, don't clap if you don't like it, please, we would like you all to be blunt with us," implored Relena, shaking her head slightly, she just could no longer tolerate falseness.

"You suck!" came a voice, which sounded suspiciously like one of the teenaged sons of America's representative, from the background.

"Like that, thank you sir, whoever said that. That's what we need to know, though we may ignore that comment for this evening," teased Lynn, glancing at Relena to give her wink of encouragement.

"For those of you who do not know our music, all the songs that we are singing tonight are _not_ our songs. Our songs are usually in Japanese; these songs are just some classics that we pulled out from the internet on ancient music. These songs maybe dead to the world right now but that's the exact reason why we brought them here tonight. Though we shall play one of our songs for you later on this evening," explained Draca, switching her microphone for an ear piece microphone.

"I vote for Salimar to sing the next song," voted Adam while Lynn took off her guitar, handing it to one of the free percussionists, who apparently also played guitar, and strapped it on.

Completely surprised by Adam's suggestion since it wasn't planned that she sing the next song, Relena cried, "What! I protest to that!" All the crowd did was wait impatiently for the band to get on with their show and to stop talking and arguing.

Noting the frowns from the crowd, Lynn decided that the minor protest between Adam and Relena needed to stop and offered, "I'll join in with you, Salimar, and so will Draca."

Taking one of the other two ear piece microphones, Lynn attached it into her ear then took the other one and handed it to Relena. She glanced down at the ear piece with a tiny pout yet reluctantly took it and stood up from the keyboard.

Standing in front of the crowd with Lynn and Draca was frightening for Relena, she was so used to sitting off to the side and protected a bit by the keyboard that when she was in front of the crowd without the keyboard she felt naked.

Sage cued the trumpet player to be ready to play and immediately both drums and singers started at the same time in a swing style song, the singers snapping their fingers to the beat.

Trying to ignore the fact that her friends were in the crowd, Relena tried to loosen up a bit to dance, but it wasn't working. She watched as Lynn and Draca moved about, working the crowd into the music by clapping their hands, snapping their fingers, and starting to swing dance a bit with some of the older men.

"Women will confirm if you wanna make heads turn and boyfriends to get jealous. I'm tellin' you now so listen up fellas! Silk may show you hustle, and tee's may show your muscle. But the guy the girls are choosin' is wearing that brand new Van Heusen!" sang Relena, feeling her body relax and a genuine grin plastered as her face as she joined the crowd.

Relena purposely, feeling daring, went nearby Trowa as to silently, and without his knowing, say, "Catch me if you can."

"A crisp white shirt, stylin' tie, jacket, slacks, shoes that shine; starched light, martinized, cotton's hot buttoned up or not. Long sleeve, French cuff, studly, cuddly, sensuous! Hey guys, three words: You can't go wrong with a crisp white shirt," the three girls sang while doing some action such as making a gesture to the white shirts of the tuxedoes while singing.

"Wear flannel in the forest, plaid if you're a tourist, tank top if you're swimmin', and polyester if you don't like women," Relena flickered at the collar of one of the nearby young men wearing a polyester shirt. "Sweatshirt when you're gruntin', thermals when you're huntin'. Girls will treat you like Adonis…They even love 'em for pajamas!"

As Relena was becoming much more relaxed, she began adding in gestures to the list of clothing or pointing them out from the crowd.

"A crisp white shirt, stylin' tie, jacket, slacks, shoes that shine; starched light, martinized, cotton's hot buttoned up or not. Long sleeve, French cuff, studly, cuddly, sensuous! Hey guys, three words: You can't go wrong with a crisp white shirt…" Trumpet crescendoed with the vocals. "…stylin' tie, jacket, slacks, shoes that shine; starched light, martinized, cotton's hot buttoned up or not! Long sleeve…French cuff, studly, cuddly, sensuous! Hey guys, three words: You can't go wrong with a crisp…white…shirt!"

The trumpet played its last note and this time more of the guests were applauding, for real, causing Relena to swell with pride. She was happy to be able to see the higher class, who were normally very formal and sometimes a bit stiff, lighten.

"Whoa! Sounding much better people but we only get to do six more songs than it is back to the orchestra, after all they're the ones getting paid to play for you, not us," Draca told the crowd after glancing at Marquis Weridge for the sign that they had six more songs to do before they had to leave.

Removing the ear piece microphone, Relena took her place back behind the keyboard and felt its securities envelope her. As she dimly listened to Draca, Relena glanced over at her grandfather, Marquis Weridge. He caught her eye and gave her a proud, broad smile and discreet kiss.

"…I think it's about time to slow the pace down slightly, but not too much," was all Relena heard before she realized that the band was humming and bass guitar playing softly.

Everyone continued to hum even after Sage began to sing "Lean on Me". Relena wasn't so much fond of the song itself as she was of the lyrics, she liked the lyrics a lot but she didn't like to play the song too much. It was one of her less practiced pieces and one of those songs that required minimal keyboard.

"Girl, please swallow your pride. If I have things you need to borrow, for no one can fill those of your needs that you don't let show," jumped in Adam, causing Relena to glance back at him. She knew what he was doing, he was singing the song to her for the most part and as endearing as that might have been to other people, Relena knew better.

With Adam, if he sang a song to you it wasn't because he was showing his feelings for you, but rather he was giving advice or trying to cheer someone up. This time, he was trying to discreetly give Relena advice.

Subconsciously, Relena sang the chorus with the rest of the band, like she was supposed to.

For the rest of the song, Relena tried to relax until she saw that Draca was out in the crowd, dancing with Quatre no less!

Caught between laughing aloud or yelling at Draca for dancing with Quatre, Relena just shook her head and smiled, bopping her head to the music until it came to it's abrupt ending, one that she hated. She just couldn't get over how the ending just seemed so suddenly that it barely seemed like an ending at all.

"Now, wasn't that fun? Thank you, Quatre for the dance," winked Draca before returning to the band. "Alright ladies and gents, we shall have our dear electric player, Lynn, show you how well she is able to sing."

Subtly, Relena made a victorious 'yes' motion as she watched Lynn's eyes grow wide with surprise and the orchestra percussion player pull out a country styled guitar and put it in tune.

"Come on country girl; show them what you are able to sing!" urged Draca.

It wasn't common knowledge, but for those who did their research into Lynn's past, beyond the fact that she was a foster kid, they found out that Lynn was in fact a Texas born girl and had spent the first five years of her life in Dallas.

"You are so dead, Draca," growled Lynn as she replaced the ear piece microphone back into her ear. "Okay, people, me being a slight Texan girl at heart, I shall be showin' ya'll a little bit of the country music. It ain't all what most people think it is."

The orchestra player started up on the guitar then Sage joined in with Adam, which was to be the only instrumental background music for the entire song, until Relena came in later with the keyboard.

Getting up from behind the keyboard with the ear piece microphone on, Relena went over to a nearby young male and asked him for a brief dance. He accepted with a surprised tone, and took Relena out on the dance floor as Lynn sang with a lot of emotion.

When Lynn came to the line, "But Katie's young and man, she just don't care," Relena excused herself from her partner and grabbed a girl that was close to them for the man to dance with.

Finding Lynn by Heero and Sylvia, Relena closed her eyes briefly so that no one would see her roll them. What was it and her friends attracting attention from Heero? Was it some sort of plan to make Heero find her even faster!

"_She's in love with the boy_! _She's in love with the boy_! _She's in love with the boy!" _Relena sang with the other girls before Lynn took control of the song again.

Returning to her keyboard, Relena prepared herself for her upcoming chords and miniature solos, which were fun for Relena to play for they weren't written like classical pieces but more laid back with a little bounce.

"She's gonna marry that boy someday…" The song ended with Lynn back with the rest of the band, standing beside Draca, who had started up a line of line dancers in the middle of the song-amazingly enough.

"Now, doesn't she have a beautiful voice?" asked Draca, being extremely playful with Lynn as she winked at her friend. "Though I think we have been neglecting the boys too much, what do you say ladies?"

There were a few daughters of the representatives that cheered at the idea, which surprised Relena. Not once, in her years of politics pre and post being Vice Foreign Minister, did Relena ever hear anyone cheer.

"My…boys, you two have a bit of a fan club all of your own," teased Draca, throwing Relena a stunned-questioning look, which Relena replied with a shrug. She couldn't explain why suddenly some girls cheered.

"Hallelujah to that sister!" agreed Relena, full-heartedly as she moved away from her instrument and towards Draca. "Anyways, we are all about being different and singing different types of music. So let's hear some of it boys!"

Lynn placed her guitar back on and glanced at Adam for a cue. He gave her a curt nod and both of them opened up the song, then Sage joined them.

It was a fast pace song and it could make almost anyone hyped, or suffer from a headache.

"8 o'clock Monday night and I'm waiting to finally talk to a girl a little cooler than me. Her name is Nona she's a rocker with a nose ring. She wears a 2-way, but I'm not quite sure what that means…" Adam sang, watching as Relena made her way around the crowds, pointedly avoiding the area where Quatre, Sylvia, and Heero were.

"And when she walks," he continued to sing, "all the wind blows and the angels sing…but, she doesn't notice me! Cause she's watching wrestling, creaming over tough guys, listening to rap metal, turntables in her eye."

Relena could feel Adam's eyes on her as she danced with one of the older men of the audience, who had zero rhythm, yet the young girl bore it well. Glancing up to meet Adam's stare, she saw him motion his head toward Heero and Sylvia, even though it looked more like hair toss.

Understanding what he wanted her to do, which was to go over by Heero and sort of stand under his nose without him knowing who she really was. Biting her lip, Relena shook her head. This was a game she was playing with the perfect soldier and she didn't wish to somehow mess up now, perhaps later she would approach him, but not now.

"There she goes again with fishnets on and dread locks in her hair. She broke my heart I want to be sedated. All I wanted was to see her naked," Adam sang, giving Relena a small shrug.

"Your band is pretty good!" shouted the older man Relena was dancing with, catching her attention. "I never knew how much fun it would be to hear lyrics in music or to hear such a small variety of music make simplistic music sound like a masterpiece."

"Thank you," Relena smiled, she knew what a critical critic someone like Mr. Robinson of Canada was. So, a compliment from him was not something to be taken lightly.

"I'm especially impressed with your friend's voice," he continued, gesturing to Draca. "She has a powerful voice that it very well tuned and pleasant to listen to, and I should know having been a choir teacher when I was much younger."

Raising an impressed eyebrow, Relena stared down at the man in shock. She had never known that Mr. Robinson had once been a teacher before he went into politics, and it made her smile that she now knew something more, something more personal beyond his political reputation and status.

"We keep telling her that she should be an opera singer," Relena replied.

Mr. Robinson smiled, "You have a wonderful voice as well, it may not be professional or as powerful as your friend's, but a pleasure to listen to none the less. You shouldn't try to hide your talent so much, what you sang earlier was delightful."

Her cheeks were burning, she was certain of it. Relena was never one to be able to take compliments about herself too well, it was nice to hear them but so many times she found her own opinions contradicted others', causing her to believe people only complimented her for politeness sake.

"No, I don't," Relena denied out of habit.

"Indeed you do, and never let anyone, including yourself, say otherwise," Mr. Robinson told her as the song came to an end. "It was a pleasure to have had this dance with you."

"As it was with you," returned Relena as she returned Mr. Robinson to his eldest daughter and wife. "Your husband is quite the gentleman Mrs. Robinson."

"I would have nothing less," the older woman smiled.

Laughing a bit, Relena bowed to the Robinson family before returning to the band and giving Sage a high-five and "Great job". Then she did the same with Adam and he replied, "Next time, dance with Heero, make Sylvia jealous."

Sitting at the keyboard, Relena just rolled her eyes, she did not wish to draw attention, at least not a lot of it, to her character Salimar.

"These boys certainly can sing, can't they ladies and gentlemen?" declared Lynn, applauding the boys before nodding to Draca who just smiled evilly for a second and gave Lynn a wink.

Relena didn't see the wink nor did she notice that wicked smile that was on Draca's lips until she heard her friend announce the next singer.

"Now, this time for certain, Salimar is going to sing our first true slow song of the evening for all of you great people that keep the peace for all of us," announced Draca, directing everyone's attention to the stunned but defeated Relena.

Relena wanted to protest but she knew that it would be useless this time, and her ballad was meant for only one singer, though it could have more. Plus, what Mr. Robinson said about trying not to hide her talents repeated itself in Relena's head.

Waving a bit and forcing a smile, one that Relena was used to putting on after meetings, during meetings, in the public, just about anywhere. There was no way that she was going to show just how terrified she was to have to sing by herself, and on a ballad.

Moving to the piano, Relena sat down while Lynn took control of the keyboard, setting it to her liking.

Adjusting the microphone on the piano to suit her, Relena tested the tuning of the piano and its tone once more to make certain that it still sounded magnificent. Satisfied, she turned to Lynn and gave her a nod.

Taking a sedated breath, Relena heard Lynn play the keyboard solo before piano, bass, and drums entered.

With her eyes closed yet fingers gliding confidently over the piano, Relena sang, "I don't know what it is that you've done to me, but it's caused me to act in such a crazy way. Whatever it is that you do when you do what you're doing…It's a feeling that I don't understand. 'Cause my heart starts beating triple time with thoughts of loving you on my mind. I can't figure out just what to do when the cause and cure is you."

In her mind, Relena could picture Heero's image during the Eves' War when he was introduced to the St. Gabriel class as 'Heero Yuy'.

"I get so weak in the knees, I can hardly speak, I lose all control and something takes over me. In a daze and it's so amazing! It's not a phase, I want you to stay with me, by my side, I swallow my pride. Your love is so sweet, it knocks me right off of my feet! Can't explain why your loving makes me weak."

Relena resisted the temptation of opening her eyes to gaze at Heero, for if she opened her eyes she would see him with Sylvia.

"Time after time, after time I try to fight it…but your love is strong, it keeps on holding on! Resistance is down when you're around, cries fading. In my condition, I don't want to be alone! 'Cause my heart starts beating triple time with thoughts of loving you on my mind. I can't figure out just what to do when the cause and cure is you…"

She could see him sitting on the bench in the park outside of the Peacecraft home and school, reading a book again. During his stay in the Sank Kingdom she had began to notice some of the smaller habits and pleasures Heero took, and it wasn't because she followed him around.

"I get so weak in the knees, I can hardly speak, I lose all control and something takes over me. In a daze and it's so amazing! It's not a phase, I want you to stay with me, by my side, I swallow my pride. Your love is so sweet, it knocks me right off of my feet! Can't explain why your loving makes me weak."

The image in her mind changed over to the night when she had left her life as Relena Darlian-Peacecraft, Vice Foreign Minister, behind. She could recall every word that she and Heero had exchanged.

"I try hard to fight it! No way can I deny it! You're love's so sweet, knocks me off my feet!"

She could remember the unjust anger she felt toward him the moment he walked into the kitchen and how one of his rare, small smiles faded into his mask of indifference. It seemed as though he could not allow her to see something so precious as a smile.

"I get so weak in the knees, I can hardly speak, I lose all control and something takes over me. In a daze and it's so amazing! It's not a phase, I want you to stay with me, by my side, I swallow my pride. Your love is so sweet, it knocks me right off of my feet! Can't explain why your loving makes me weak!"

Relena could hear Lynn start to since the echoing, "I get so weak," while the tempo of the song gradually grow a little powerful.

"Blood starts racing through my veins! Boy, it's something I can't explain! Something 'bout the way you do the things you doo-ooo-ooo, it...Ohhhhh, off my feet!

Can't explain why your lovin' makes me weak…"

Relena added in her own little improvise grace note at the end of the song.

Slowly opening her eyes, Relena saw that Heero was still floating around the dance floor with Sylvia. She adverted her eyes ruefully and felt her chest tighten painfully.

Taking a breath, Relena blinked away her tears and looked up to find that Draca had been dancing with Trowa, of all people! It amazed Relena that Trowa had even danced, let alone allowed Draca to dance with him.

Draca ditched her dance partner and headed back to the band only to stand near the drum set and by Adam. Relena couldn't hear what they were saying but apparently it was something about Heero and Sylvia.

Getting up, she and Lynn joined the group.

"What's the game plan?" asked Lynn. The band had only two more songs to play and they could perform them three ways; one, play both now and be done with it. Two, play one now, take a break, and play the last afterwards. Or three, take a break and play both at the end.

"Last one, then your song, we are out of here, and then on the first flight back to Verona. I don't want to be here any longer than necessary," Draca told them, and Relena could feel her friend's underlining meaning, she didn't want to stay around Heero and Sylvia longer than necessary.

"Aw…come on, darling, that would be rude for us to dash away without chowing down on some food or paying our respects in person to the host and to Marquis Weridge," pointed out Adam, draping an arm over Relena's shoulder.

"He's right, after all Marquis Weridge did get us this gig so we must thank him at the very least," added Relena as a hint that she would like to have a word or two with her grandfather before leaving.

"Fine, we'll do this your way than. We finish, we pack up, we thank, and then we are out of here," listed Draca, surprising Relena that she gave in so easily. "Sound good for all of you?"

"What about food?" asked Sage as everyone turned to him with raised eyebrows. If there was ever anyone who was overly food conscious, it was Sage. He refused to waste food and would eat as much as he could without vomiting. "Can't go home on an empty stomach, you know."

"Okay, we eat too," sighed Draca, shaking her head. "Is that good for all of you?"

"Yeah, but let's get back to the crowd they look a bit anxious," noted Relena, impressed that the higher class crowd was restless for the band to play again.

"Let's finish this then," declared Draca and the group returned to their instruments, Lynn to her guitar and Relena to her keyboard.

Picking up an ear microphone, Draca plastered on a smile and announced to the crowd, "Ladies and gentlemen I regret to inform you that this is the second to last song that we shall perform for you this evening. We have one more after this song, one of our songs, to still entertain you with though."

**Thank you to: NekuYasha, Lynn-Minmay, Morrighan of Crimson and Sable, Ulitheal, and DogDemonK9.**

**Damn, this thing was long, and it took so long to write! Hope you enjoyed.**


	11. A Feeling of Regret

It's My Life

**Okay, as promised, here's ****Lena****'s side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

Electric guitar started the second to last song with some woeful yet slightly eerie sound, then on the keyboards Relena played some gospel sounding music on the organ setting.

From what the group read of the history of the song, "Like a Prayer", it was a controversy when it first came out. Or specifically, the music video was a cause of great controversy for religious reasons.

Relena just loved to hear Draca sing, she had a fantastic voice but she also put so much emotion behind that voice that it just made her singing more enjoyable to listen to. Especially when the music sped up, adding in the drums and bass.

"When you call my name it's like a little prayer. I'm down on my knees, I wanna take you there! In the midnight hour I can feel your power. Just like a prayer you know I'll take you there."

Softly in the background, Lynn and Relena "oh"ed while the music returned to the more gospel type, without the drums or bass for accompaniment.

Throughout the song, Relena kept her eyes and mind as far away from Heero as possible, but every once in a while her eyes would stray over to him to find them dancing; something Relena knew Heero dreaded. Many times in the past he had avoided dancing with Relena, using pathetic and thinly veiled excuses.

However, the times when she did get him to dance, it was more torture than pleasure. Not once did he really keep his attention on her, his attention was caught by anything around them. Often she would catch him glancing up at the galleries, looking out for any potential dangers despite the fact that there were security guards roaming the galleries. Relena thought it might be a bit selfish of her to want Heero's attention all for herself during their dances but she couldn't help it. Sometimes she just needed his attention, other than his attention on her safety.

The song had come to the point where the lyrics were transferred over to Relena. "Just like a prayer, I'll take you there! It's like a dream to me… Just like a prayer…I'll take you there! It's like a dream to me…! Just like a prayer…I'll take you there! It's like a dream to me…! Just like a prayer…I'll…take you there… It's just like a dream to me!"

Relena loved that part of the song strictly because it was meant to sound like a choir was singing it instead of just one person.

The song transferred back to Draca and she ended the song.

Surprisingly, the room exploded with applause, something Relena had thought she would never have seen. She glanced around the room with her mouth hanging slightly open from shock.

_This is incredible…we're being applauded. _Applauded,_ by people of the highest society who would never acknowledge much less applaud an unprofessional band like us,_ Relena thought, turning to her friends to find her shocked expression matched by them.

Turning around to Adam, Relena broke in a full-blown grin and gave him a thumb's up.

"Wow," he commented, "and it wasn't even our last song."

"Thank you for your support ladies and gentlemen, but sadly this next song is our last for the evening. Our next song was written by our own band member, Lynn Voc, and will be sung by her as well. Take it away Lynn!" announced Draca, recalling Adam and Relena to the fact that they were going to play.

They played Lynn's song from the bar, as planned, and Relena enjoyed her time but half her mind was focused on what Trowa and Quatre could potentially be talking about.

She had observed them together in the past many times, yet there was always one aspect of their relationship that Relena couldn't quite figure out. Who was in love with whom? Was it a one-sided love or was it mutual?

Almost anyone with enough sense and sight could see how much Trowa cared and loved Quatre, but Relena just couldn't quite pick out Quatre's feelings for Trowa. Sometimes it seemed that Quatre might return Trowa's affections but other times it seemed he only thought of the taller man as a brother or friend.

The song came to an end and Relena's view of Quatre and Trowa was obstructed by Sylvia's and Heero's backs as they approached the two former gundam pilots.

"Salimar," Adam spoke up, tapping Relena's shoulder, "time to get packed up."

"Oh right," she nodded, getting up, unplugging the cords of the keyboard.

"So," Adam began with a mischief grin, "what's the story behind those two guys? Are they available? Or are they a couple?"

Relena couldn't help it; she had to laugh as she rolled up the cords. So, she wasn't the only one to notice how close Quatre and Trowa were.

"Nah, I'm not really certain what the story between them is. I know that Trowa is in love with Quatre but I'm not quite certain about Quatre…" Adam seemed a bit distracted. "What is it?"

Starting to turn her head around, Adam cupped her face in his hands and kept her facing him. "It seems that you were right, you friends seem to assume that Lynn is you as they are checking her out."

Glancing at Lynn, from the corner of her eye, Relena saw Sage say something to Lynn and she turn around.

"What's going on?" Relena muttered, as Adam let go of her face.

"Uh…lover boy is having a staring contest with Lynn and the others have adverted their gazes," Adam reported, setting aside his guitar on the stand. "Lynn has shrugged and returned to talking with my brother."

"I can see that, Adam," Relena pointed out to him, giving him a playful punch in the shoulder. "Alright, I'm going to go talk with my grandfather, see you after eating."

"Yup, hey be careful, your friends might want to use our separation as a time to interrogate us," Adam pointed out, as Relena began to make her way toward the table her grandfather sat at.

"Dully noted," she told him.

"Hey Salimar, aren't you forgetting something?" Adam inquired teasingly, causing Relena to turn to him with a quizzical expression. Holding up a finger, Adam reached behind his amp and pulled out a notebook with a pen in the rings. He tossed the notebook to Relena, who caught it. "You still have that song to finish up dudette."

With a smile, Relena nodded.

Relena approached her grandfather and had to restrain herself from hugging him, or else she would draw suspicion. So instead she approached her grandfather with an air of casual-friendliness.

"Good evening," she greeted with a knowing smile.

"It has been. Great show and great display of talent from all of you," Marquis Weridge acknowledged with a proud grin. "I'm very proud of you my girl."

"Thank you, but it's really the others who you should be thanking. After all, it was their idea to get the band together in the first place, they just offered the position to me and I accepted," Relena explained, feeling a blush creeping across her features.

Standing up, Marquis Weridge crossed around the table and gave Relena a brief hug. Which Relena returned meekly, before separating, reluctantly, from her grandfather.

"Oh, and Frankie says 'hi'," Relena informed him.

"Send her my love," Marquis Weridge returned.

"I promise," she nodded, before leaving to go over to another empty table.

At the new table, Relena settled into a chair and pulled out the small notebook and began to reread over the lyrics she already had. The song was coming along alright; she had recently began making good progress on it. Ever since that night at the Giorgio's bar, Relena had a sudden spring of inspiration and the words were just coming from her head and on to the page.

In her mind, Relena could hear everything in the song. The lyrics, the instruments, the general feel of the song; everything! She could just hear it all inside her head and it was beautiful.

Suddenly, Relena was jolted out of her little world by someone clearing his or her throat. Looking up, Relena saw that standing across the table from her was Trowa Barton, the former pilot of gundam Heavyarms.

"Oh, didn't know you were there. Please take a seat," offered Relena, gesturing to the chair next to her.

Trowa nodded his thanks and sat down, taking up a position that Relena noted gave him a view of Quatre.

"You like him," she commented. This caused Trowa to shift his eyes to her for a second. "Don't deny it."

"I deny nothing," Trowa insisted, but Relena could see that he was trying to cover up his emotions. "You just…misunderstand."

_I'm sure. _"That's why you keep your gaze glued to him right?" she taunted, biting the top of her pen with an amusing grin on her lips.

"I am his bodyguard, nothing more or less," Trowa stated simply. Translation: This is the end of this discussion.

"Of course you are," giggled Relena, returning to her writings and rolling her eyes. _Perhaps I should share my little crush on Adam then he may open up a bit more,_ she decided."It's okay; I had a crush on Adam when I was younger, but then I found out that he didn't like girls in that way."

"How old were you at the time of your 'crush'?" he inquired, and Relena could sense that Trowa was trying to explain off her crush and Adam's rejection with some logic that didn't include homosexuality.

"About twelve years old," she stated, honestly, "before I moved to Korea, as I am sure you already knew though." She knew she had answered with a pinch of sarcasm when mentioning that Trowa knew she had moved to Korea. She hadn't meant to use the sarcasm but it just came out.

"I had no idea I assure you," claimed Trowa, glancing over at what Relena was writing, causing her to feel a bit self-conscious as all her emotions were spilling out onto the paper.

Relena couldn't read by his tone if he was being honest or if it was a lie. So, instead of being indirect, Relena directly told him, "Really?--I highly doubt that with what Relena has told us about you Preventers. Once one has a bit of information, they all do, and Hilde got some information." She closed the notebook to prevent Trowa from reading any more.

"I'm not a preventer," the silencer stated firmly.

"Then what are you?" she challenged, leaning closer to him with a raised eyebrow.

"A clown."

A mental image of Trowa in a bright clown outfit with puffy red hair, big red nose and shoes entered her mind. Relena broke into fits of endless giggles at the thought, causing her to clutch her stomach as she attempted to calm herself after a few moments.

"You find that amusing do you?" noted Trowa, casting her a questioning glance.

"No, the mental image of you as a clown," she laughed, sensing that Trowa did not fully understand her meaning. "Think about it, you with a red, curly, puffy wig with big red shoes, red nose, and a ridiculous red outfit to go with it all. Brings a rather disturbing yet hilarious image to mind, no?"

"I suppose," agreed Trowa, chuckling softly which surprised Relena. She was well aware that it was an accomplishment to make the tall gundam pilot laugh or even to just crack a smile.

"I am afraid that's not my attire though," he assured her.

"Aw…!" Relena pouted, snapping her fingers in disappointment. "If you're a clown then why are you playing bodyguard for a colony representative?"

"My friend asked me if I would until his normal bodyguard felt well again," he answered, amazingly enough. "Though that's not what I wanted to speak with you about, Ms. Reigns."

Here it was, time to play the role of Salimar Reigns and start to make up partially fictional answers.

"Of course not, you wish to talk about the former Vice Foreign Minister Relena Darlian. So, let's talk about her. What do you wish to know about her?" smiled Relena, knowingly as she leaned back in her seat comfortably and purposely crossing her legs in a un-lady-like manner.

"Let's start with where she could be," suggested Trowa, glancing at her quickly.

"No idea," she shrugged carelessly. "She could be in space, on Mars, in Japan, Russia, Korea, Vietnam, Australia, Sri Lanka, Canada, Africa, Iceland, Greenland, the Amazon, Chile, Brazil, or even in this very room for all that I know. Wherever she is, I just hope she's safe."

It felt odd to be speaking of herself in the third person; too odd that Relena actually had to consciously force herself to say "she" and "her" instead of "I' or "me".

"Have you spoken to her recently?" questioned Trowa curiously.

Breathing a sigh of exhaustion, Relena replied, "Not recently. The last time she contacted me was about three weeks ago from a payphone somewhere in the Mexico area." She had just made up that entire answer off the top of her head and Relena was praying that Trowa had bought into the lie.

"What did she tell you?" he continued.

_Nice try Trowa, but you're not going to get any real information out of me. _"Classified information," she informed him, cracking a small smile and rolling her eyes.

He raised an eyebrow, which Relena would have found to be really attractive if she didn't know that he was pinning after Quatre. "Really? Such as where she was?"

"No," Relena decided to answer, "but I know that she contacted me from the Mexico area by the noise in the background. All we talked about were just her thoughts on recent subjects, people, and her own life. Even about her little game that she was playing."

Glancing about the room as she uncrossed her legs, Relena began to realize just how right Adam was. Quatre was over talking with Lynn, alone, and Heero with Sylvia were speaking to Draca.

"Game? What game?" Trowa asked with genuine interest.

Relena felt that it was a shame that she Trowa had never really gotten to know each other, she was certain that they would have made great friends. So she gave him a rueful grin. "Have you ever met Relena?"

"Yes," Trowa answered after recovering from being taken back, "a few times while standing in as Quatre's bodyguard, but I have never officially met her. In fact, we never once held a conversation before."

_I wish I could have done this sooner with Trowa and as myself instead of living under the name Salimar Reigns,_ Relena thought.

"Why do you look like that?" she heard Trowa inquire.

Shaking her head, Relena just smiled, "Just thinking what you and her missed out on." She sighed sadly, "You would've really liked her, the real her, not that polite act that she puts on for the public. She was, and still is, so…agh! I can't think of the word, but you would've liked the real her."

With that, Relena got up ready to leave, but Trowa stopped her by inquiring, "How do you know this", referring back to the real Relena.

Bending down to Trowa's ear, Relena whispered softly, "I just do." Then patted Trowa on the shoulder and began to make her getaway, but only to have her wrist be caught by the former gundam pilot.

"What was that that you were writing earlier?" he asked her, much to Relena's amazement. She had been hoping that Trowa would've forgotten all about the song.

"Oh, well it's a song," she replied.

"For the band?" he assumed.

"Yes, since it is tradition," she smiled, giggling a little bit at the perplexed look on the man's face.

"Tradition?" he echoed.

"You see, each member of the band must write one song, by his or herself, and at least two instrument parts for that song," Relena explained, praying that he wouldn't ask any more questions or make a request to read the song.

"I would have thought that one song you sang in English in Verona would be your song," he told her.

_Most people probably would assume so, _Relena smiled while saying, "No, my song is in Japanese since Draca and Lynn enjoy the language."

"You don't?"

Now Relena knew that she had to be careful with her answers or Trowa would start to get suspicious of her. For if she hinted that she didn't like the Japanese language because it reminded her of Heero in any way, her days as a free woman would be gone.

"I don't mind it but I like variety," she stated honestly.

Cracking a tiny smile, Trowa released Salimar from his grip, to Relena's relief. "Thank you for your time, Ms. Reigns," he said formally.

"No problem, it was a pleasure speaking to you, Trowa," she assured him, but then added a question about getting his name right. She didn't wish to sound as though she knew who he was by name and face even though they had met only once.

Trowa confirmed his name; then Relena left him to return to the instruments, Lynn, and Adam.

_At least I had survived that interview. I wonder if he suspects me at all,_ Relena thought, throwing a glance over her shoulder at the gundam pilot. _I really wish that I had gotten to know him before all of this. He really is a nice guy and I think he truly does love Quatre._

**Thank you to: Ulitheal, NekuYasha, Lynn-Minmay, hiei4everand4always, Morrighan of Crimson and Sable, and DogDemonK9. It's always nice to have some die-hard fans out there. Thanks you all! Check you all next time, hopefully sooner than how this chapter was updated.**


	12. Requested Call

**It's My Life**

**Okay, as promised, here's ****Lena****'s side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

**Yeah, I know this chapter took a long time coming. The next update will be May 28th, unless something comes up, like I'm in an accident or something. But count on May 28th for the next update.**

"How did it go?" Lynn inquired first once Relena had joined the group.

"Not bad, I'm glad it was Trowa who approached me rather than Heero," Relena answered honestly. "I'm not certain how I would have handled him by myself."

Sage came up to Relena and draped an arm about her shoulders. "Well, if he had approached you and given you trouble then either Adam or I, or even both of us, would have came to your aid."

"Damn right!" concurred Adam, draping his arm over Relena's other shoulder so that she was sandwiched between the two men. "That's right, we're always right beside you girl when you need us to get you out of a fix."

"Thanks guys," Relena smiled.

Draca decided to speak up at that time, her mouth had opened on several occasions to say something but nothing had ever came out. "Hey guys, I was talking with our host before and he requested that we play at least one more song. So, I figured we could just play "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" since it's a simple song and all."

The other members of the band exchanged glances then shrugged. No one really minded having to play, in fact they loved the opportunity to have an encore.

"Should I make the announcement then while you guys get set up again?" Draca asked, waiting for an actual 'yes' or 'no' answer.

Lynn answered for the group, "Yeah. Go tell them and we'll set up."

"Okay than," nodded Draca, heading over to the microphone while the group dispersed to their instruments.

"Ladies and Dear Gentlemen, it has come to our attention that we have received quite a few compliments about our talent as performers, so as to say "Thank you" we will sing one last song to keep the spirits of this crowd up," announced Draca, capturing everyone attention in the entire room.

Picking up her cords, Relena connected the keyboard and amp, and plugged in the pedal before beginning her search for her microphone. Why wasn't there a microphone by the keyboards?

Normally this song was sang by Draca but Relena sang the chorus line with Draca and Adam. So, once again, where was her microphone? Ready to go "borrow" Lynn's microphone, Relena found Lynn not to be by her guitar or amp.

_Where's __Lynn_ she wondered, glancing about.

"Our last song for the entire evening," sighed Draca, dramatically, as she crossed over to where Relena stood.

Draca held out her microphone to Relena in a gesture that said that Relena was to be the leader singer of the song.

Hesitantly, Relena took the microphone then threw a glare at Lynn, who had sat down at the keyboards for the second time that evening. This was unfair! Her friends had apparently set her up to be the lead singer of the song, but why! Shifting her gaze, Relena looked towards Adam, but all he did was nod as he fixed his microphone stand. It was confirmed, she was singing the song with Adam instead of Draca.

_Don't complain about things you can't fix,_ Relena reminded herself with a sigh. She really didn't want to sing, but as Draca wasn't going to sing she had no choice but to take up the role. _Just torture Draca about it later._

Bass, keyboards, and the light drums began the song before Adam started the vocals.

"Listen baby, ain't no mountain high! Ain't no valley low! Ain't no river wide enough baby…"

Relena joined in, "If you need me, call me. No matter where you are; no matter how far."

Adam sang in the background, "Don't worry baby--"

Relena continued, "Just call my name, I'll be there in a hurry. You don't have to worry, because…"

Standing front and center of the band, Relena watched as Draca pranced around the crowd carrying a tambourine, which she didn't beat on until the chorus, and grabbed a few of the representative's grandsons to get them to start dancing. It was a typical Draca moment and it just made Relena smile, and it kept her eyes and mind away from Heero and the others.

"Baby, there ain't no mountain high enough! Ain't no valley low enough! Ain't no river wide enough baby, to keep me from getting to you-!" both band members sang, creating a great blend.

"Baby, remember the day, I set you free. I told you could always count on me darling. And from that day on, I made a vow, I'll be there when you want me someway, somehow," sung Adam as Relena came up right beside him with her microphone, most likely off, and just stood leaning against him.

It was no accident that in most of the songs that Relena sang, without playing keyboards, she would be around Adam. Adam was like a great big security blanket to Relena, almost like the big brother she never had but desperately wanted.

"Cause baby, there ain't no mountain high enough! Ain't no valley low enough! Ain't no river wide enough baby, to keep me from getting to you-!" both sang into Adam's microphone.

"No, no darling," Adam added, grabbing the microphone and tilting it so that he was singing right at Relena instead of toward the crowd.

Grinning, Relena leaned forward to have better access to the microphone. "No wind, no rain-! Or a winter's cold can stop me baby. Because you are my love-!" she responded, poking a joking finger into her partner's chest.

"If you're ever in trouble, I'll be there on the double. Just send for me oh baby-!" Adam told her.

Relena moved away, turning on her own microphone to sing into.

"My love is alive, deep down in my heart, though we are miles apart." Relena extended her free hand to imitate being apart from someone.

"If you ever need a helping hand, I'll be there on the double, just as fast as I can," assured Adam.

"Don't ya know that there ain't no mountain high enough! Ain't no valley low enough! Ain't no river wide enough baby!"

"To keep me from getting to you," included Relena, pointing generally at the crowd.

"Don't ya know that there ain't no mountain high enough! Ain't no valley low enough! Ain't no river wide enough! There ain't no mountain high enough! Ain't no valley low enough-!"

The music faded, much to Relena's relief, and the audience burst into cheers and whistles. Although, Relena suspected that some of the cheers came from Draca jingling the tambourine as she raced up to the rest of the band. Draca motioned everyone to come forward.

The band members all did so, took each others' hands, and bowed to their crowd.

Rising from their bow, the band members went to their instruments to start putting everything away, for certain this time. In record time, and with some extra help from the orchestra members, 'For Rel' was out of the building in record time.

With everything packed into the SUVs and everyone present, the band members climbed into the vehicles. Except this time, Relena was riding with Adam and Lynn, upon Lynn's request.

Sitting in the back, Relena laid across the seat and stared up at the ceiling with her hands clasped under her head. She was tired, she really was but she wasn't about to fall asleep in the SUV on the way to the airport, as it was only a twenty minute drive.

"Lena," Lynn spoke up, turning her body around so that she faced her backseat friend.

"Mmh?"

"Did you know that Quatre wants to see you?" Relena gave Lynn an exasperated look but nodded nonetheless. "I know, everyone wants to see you, but I'm talking about seeing you and then letting you go. No Preventers, no promises; nothing."

Sitting up, Relena raised an eyebrow, she was intrigued by this. Despite all her planning, Relena hadn't exactly planned a course of action if she found out that any of her friends would be willing to see her only to have to let her go. It just wasn't something she expected from any of them.

"What gave you that idea?" Relena questioned, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Quatre told me while he was interrogating me," replied Lynn. "He really does want to see you again or at the very least talk to you."

Biting her lower lip, Relena was caught between believing Lynn's word or ignoring it all together. She hadn't been kept hidden by making constant contact with the Preventers or old friends.

"How do you know that it wouldn't be some sort of trap?" she challenged.

"Maybe because I get the feeling that he genuinely cares about you and your happiness. Can't you just give him a call at the airport and see how he's doing? I mean, come on, give the poor guy a chance," Lynn implored, surprising Relena.

Lynn never implored unless it was something she desperately wanted, and it was something she felt to be important. Was there something that Lynn knew that Relena didn't, about Quatre? Was there some sort of secret Quatre had shared with her?

"Fine," Relena agreed, "I'll give him a call at the airport, but that's it!"

The smile on Lynn's face was wide, bright, and grateful. "Thank you so much Lena! I just know you won't regret it!"

Turning her gaze to the window, Relena watched the lights, cars, and stores pass by. "I highly doubt that…"

* * *

_What am I doing? I must be insane to be doing this!_ Relena decided as she dialed the number to the hotel Quatre normally used in New York.

Someone answered at the front desk. "Hello, can I please have the room number for Representative Quatre Winner?" she inquired and, as to be expected, the clerk said that the information was classified except to a few persons, and Relena knew who those persons were. "This is his secretary, Ms. Jennings, I have an important message for Mr. Winner and it can't wait."

The clerk sighed, "Didn't he leave you with his room number?"

"He had but he left it somewhere on my desk and I can't find it at this time, so can you be a little darling and give me the room number please?" she requested sweetly.

"1187," reported the clerk.

"Thank you." Hanging up the phone, Relena redialed the hotel phone number, but included Quatre's room number this time.

_What am I going to say? _she wondered, starting to panic. _Do I just act natural? Do I say the traditional 'hello'? How am I supposed to behave toward him? How am I supposed to greet him?_

One ring. Two rings.

_Maybe he's not in and I won't have to talk with him,_ Relena thought, hopefully yet disappointedly as she picked up a nearby "Universal Magazine" with a picture of Quatre on the front. _What if he thinks I'm someone calling to threaten him and he won't pick up? I mean there's no answering machine or anything of the like there._

Three rings. Four rings.

_What if __Lynn__'s wrong and he doesn't want to talk with me…?_

"He…hello?" came Quatre's hesitant greeting, surprising Relena.

"Hey," she returned, in a voice that unbelievably calm and carefree, "long time no hear."

"Re…Relena…" she heard him stammer before the loud THUD sound of the phone being dropped was heard.

Putting a hand up to her mouth, Relena tried hard to not laugh or smile so broadly. She had never expected such a reaction to her voice.

Hearing the phone being adjusted and Quatre's breathing, Relena attempted to compose herself; it wasn't quite working completely, but at least she wasn't rolling on the floor in fits of laughter.

"Re…Relena?" Quatre repeated.

"Yeah, has it really been that long since you've hear from me?" teased Relena then she wanted to kick herself. Of course it had been that long! Five months! What kind of question was that to ask!

"Five months is a pretty long time for not hearing from a friend," replied Quatre. Apparently he was nervous or he was just trying to think of something, anything, to say.

Not knowing what to say either, Relena echoed, "Five months?" Then she decided to play innocent. "Has it really been that long? It hasn't felt like five months, and you still remember my voice, amazing. I'm impressed Quatre."

She was impressed too, granted she would have been able to recognize any of her friends' voices even if she hadn't heard them in months or years.

"Actually no," Quatre informed her, "I didn't recognize your voice, it was what you said. Anyone else would have just said, "Hello". You know, since they actually call once in a while."

That struck Relena hard and close to home. She had never really thought of the effects her disappearance would have on the others, especially people like Quatre or Hilde or Duo. Relena felt guilty now for having done such a rash thing, such as running away, but hadn't called anyone because she really didn't know that anyone wanted to speak with and not catch her.

She had to give him her reason for not calling. "Now, don't go getting your boxers all in a bunch. I just didn't know you wanted to speak with me," assured Relena.

"Of course, I would want to speak with you. Hell, I bet you anything Hilde, Duo, or even Heero would love to speak with you!" he told her.

Relena felt her chest constrict at the mention of Heero, especially associating him with talking with her. Heero didn't want to talk with her, he wanted to find her, nothing more.

"I doubt Heero would want to just talk with me, more like interrogate and track me," Relena stated, using a tone that hopefully told Quatre that she didn't really want to talk about Heero.

He got the hint but Quatre immediately began to ask the one question Relena refused to ever answer. "Relena, where the he…"

So, she interrupted him and laid down the rules. "Quatre, if we are going to converse on the phone together then I request that you do not ask me where I am, why I ran away, or what I have been doing. Okay?"

It was a lot to ask of Quatre, but Relena really needed him to promise not to question her using the five Ws.

"May I ask just one thing before I agree?" inquired the representative, and Relena stiffened, glancing over at Lynn trying to decide if she should trust Quatre.

"It's not about where you are," he added, probably having sensed her hesitance.

"I suppose," sighed Relena. What harm could a question, not about where she was, do to her?

"Is Heero part of the reason that you ran away?" Quatre asked.

Apparently the said question could do a lot of harm.

_How do I answer this? Do I lie and say 'no, not at all'? Or do I tell the truth and say 'part of it'?_ thought Relena. _I mean, he wasn't my ultimate reason for leaving, I had many reasons for leaving. Some of them were selfish, or perhaps all of them in some way, but he was never the prominent reason, just the most immediate reason at that time…_

"Relena?"

Oh—she still hadn't answered the question yet.

"I'm still here," she reassured her friend. "I guess in the beginning I would have said "yes, Heero's one of the reasons that I ran away", but then I would be lying. Heero just kind of gave that first shove out the door, like helped encourage me to take that first step out the door. Does that satisfy you for now?"

"Quite," confirmed Quatre, much to Relena's relief.

There was a bit of silence where Quatre didn't say anything more, so Relena decided that she would have to break the ice. "Moving onto some more pleasant topics of discussion. How are you?"

Quatre chuckled a bit, much to Relena's surprise, "Tired, lonely, and I'm possibly on the brink of insanity." Normally when Quatre chuckled it was genuine, not a bitter or jokingly; so to hear him chuckle while saying those negative aspects kind of made Relena concerned, until she realized that he was tired. "In fact," Quatre continued, "just yesterday I found that I had gray hair now!"

Relena burst out laughing hysterically. Quatre finding a gray hair mixed in with his blond strands? Relena highly doubted that it was an actually gray strand, but a blond hair that only appeared to be gray.

"I'm serious," he insisted, "I actually freaked out when I saw that. Am I truly becoming an old man?"

"Nah, you're only 19 years old, not even old enough to legally drink alcohol in the former United States of America," assured Relena between her laughs. "Perhaps you should dye your hair blond so your gray hairs don't show up on your pictures, like this picture on "Universal Magazine"." Flipping through the other photos of Quatre, Relena found each picture to have Quatre wearing a strict, sober expression that was unlike him. "They did a horrible job on capturing your more strict side, if you have one that is."

"Hey!"

"I'm only joking Quatre, jeez," giggled Relena.

"Relena."

"Yeah," she responded, still smiling as she continued to look at the pictures.

"I have a question for you."

"Shoot," Relena shrugged, starting to read the article.

"Did Lynn tell you that I wanted to speak with you?" asked Quatre.

Dropping the magazine, Relena glanced over at her friend. So, Lynn had told Quatre she would talk with her (Relena) about speaking with Quatre. Now, it made sense.

"Yeah," nodded Relena, thinking of a quick yet believable lie. "I've been trying to call her home number all night, but I didn't get an answer from her, so I tried her cell phone. I actually didn't get to speak with her until a few moments ago. She told me that you and she had a nice conversation about me. Why I didn't know you care, and well, she told me of your desire to talk with me. So, I decided to call you."

Still looking at her friends, Relena decided to address the issue of the split interrogations at the fundraiser. "Though Draca, Sage, and Salimar have also told me that Trowa, Heero, and Ms. Noventa were asking questions about me as well. Why?"

"Heero's still looking for you, and he feels that your friends are the key to finding you," replied Quatre and Relena could have blessed him aloud for being so open with her. "We only helped out because we were there. I take it, that you now know that Sylvia is Heero's girlfriend."

_May as well let him know that I have known. _"Actually, I've known that Heero had a girlfriend," Relena nodded, her voice starting to choke despite her attempts to sound indifferent. "Actually, I think I was the first one to find out, except for maybe Hilde and Duo, they probably knew long before I did."

Wiping at her eyes a bit, Relena felt tears welling up. She didn't want to cry, not because of Heero and his girlfriend.

"Are you okay with this?" Quatre cautiously inquired.

"Course," she lied, "after all, he should be happy with someone just like everyone else, even if that girl isn't me, as I know you were probably thinking, right?" She didn't wait for an answer for she already knew it. "It's not Ms. Noventa's and Mr. Yuy's relationship that bothers me," she stated.

_Great, I can't even address him as Heero out loud. I'm so pathetic sometimes._

Continuing with her rant to Quatre, Relena was unaware that she was about to divulge into her emotions. "What bothers me is the fact that he didn't even mention this relationship to me. I mean I thought he and I were friends at least, and that he would tell me such things, like friends would. Instead he kept it secret from me and…"

"Made you his second priority?" offered Quatre.

"Couldn't trust me with the truth," corrected the former Vice Foreign Minister somberly. "You weren't there Quatre, but what would happen was he would take off on the weekends, at night, to go on a date with Ms. Noventa, leaving Duo as my bodyguard; not that I'm complaining. Still, he could have told me instead of keeping it from me!"

Gradually, Relena's voice had been rising and it had attracted the band members' attention. Adam was making his way over to her even as she ranted.

She heard Quatre's soothing voice in her ear and it calmed Relena a bit.

"It's alright Relena, calm down," urged Quatre in a soothing voice.

Relena began breathing in slowly and breathing out even slower, as Adam coached her and rubbed her back. She was calm now and could speak without her emotions getting the best of her, again.

Adam gestured to the tickets in his hand then to his watch. It was time to go.

"I need to be going Quatre, I shall call you tomorrow perhaps," claimed Relena in a quiet voice.

"Understood, but Relena, could we possibly meet sometime? Face to face; in person?" questioned Quatre.

He sounded rather hopeful and Relena couldn't bear to disappoint him, nor did she want to fall easily into any trap.

"Maybe in the future Quatre, if you don't tell anyone about these phone calls," she told him. "But for now, I want to just keep it as phone call conversations. Okay?"

"That is fine by me Relena. I won't tell anyone," promised Quatre.

"Bye Quatre," smiled Relena.

"Good night Relena," Quatre told her.

Hearing the dial tone, Relena hung up the phone and turned to Adam, who watched her with worried eyes.

"Don't worry about me, I'm fine now," she told him.

Adam pulled Relena into a comforting embrace that she returned as silent tears rolled from her eyes. "You don't always have to be strong Relena, we're here for you when you need us. Don't you ever be ashamed to cry on our shoulders, girl. We all love you, and we're in this together. Okay?"

Relena nodded, letting Adam wipe the tears from her cheeks and the corners of her eyes.

"Good, now let's fly home and have some hot iced tea with lemon drops. Then we can sit in my room all night watching comedy movies, unless you feel the urge to watch sappy romances that are overly dramatized."

Laughing, Relena allowed Adam to lead her back to the other band members. She was happy here, with her friends, people who knew her best and knew exactly what to say or do to make her smile. This was where she belonged, for now.

**Thank you to: Liz, BlackAngelBlood, Ulitheal, DogDemonK9, Morrighan of Crimson and Sable, and Lynn-Minmay. Special thanks to Liz, Ulitheal, DogDemonK9, Morrighan of Crimson and Sable, and Lynn-Minmay for being such loyal readers. It's great to know that you guys still enjoy reading my work.**


	13. Plan B

**It's My Life**

**Okay, as promised, here's ****Lena****'s side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

"Why did you do that!" Relena scolded Draca, on the plane.

"I'm sorry Lena, I thought that was what you wanted," Draca apologized, bowing her head in shame and shrinking in her seat.

Relena slapped her palm to her forehead and shook her head in dismay. "Why did you send the message to Wufei Chang? Of all the Preventers to send it to, why Wufei?"

"His was the only e-mail address I could get out of Shun-li since Heero's was classified apparently and Duo's was canceled," explained Draca. "Besides, I thought you wanted these people to leave you alone."

"I do it's just…I wish you would have said something to me first rather than quickly e-mail him on the way to the airport," sighed Relena, calming down. "Oh well, nothing we can do about it now. We'll just have to hope that they'll leave us be and that we'll never have to see Heero, Sylvia, or the other Preventers again."

Draca fidgeted with her ring that Sage had given her for her birthday last year. "Well, perhaps you should start preparing a back-up plan in case things do take a turn for the worst."

Relena leaned back in her seat and put a finger to her chin, she hadn't really thought about a plan B as she believed to have everything under control. That was until Heero had suddenly come back into her life, twice!

"You're right, I need a plan B, but where would I go and who would I stay with to hide myself?" she inquired.

Lynn leaned forward on the other side of Sage, who was next to Draca, and spoke over the drummer's snoring. "Well, what about your cousin, Francis Shelly?"

"Frankie?" Relena asked in disbelief but as she began to consider the option the more appealing it became. "You know what, that might not be such a bad idea. The only problem is, her friends don't know me beyond my name really. Well…and what Frankie tells them about me."

"You had met a few of them right?" Adam interjected, opening his eyes.

Relena turned to him with a thoughtful expression. "Yeah I have. During the war while I was still looking for information about my family history, my grandfather, Marquis Weridge, told me of my cousin, Frankie. I had invited her and a few of her friends to the Sanc Kingdom before I even took up an active political role."

"There you go, so you have made some allies," Lynn pointed out. "Which friends did she take with her?"

"There was her friend Jackson Lampe, Josephina (Joey) and Salem Alley, Shun-li of course, and Jason Collins," listed Relena. "Really nice people and Jackson has been really helpful in England. He's such a sweetie."

Draca grinned, when Relena liked a guy she would describe him as being a sweetie. That was how she described Heero Yuy when she told Draca about him; _"He's this sort of indifferent guy but deep down I know that he's a sweetie."_

_Some sweetie,_ Draca snorted, recalling her interrogation session with Heero and Sylvia. _The guy knew nothing about Relena, he was too caught up with how he had seen her at the age of fifteen._

"Okay, so what do I do about the college part and who would I go as? I can't go as Frankie or someone random," explained Relena ruefully as she sat back and tilted her head upwards.

Lynn leaned across Sage and suggested, "What about any of Frankie's relatives, other than you? Couldn't you go as a relative staying with Frankie's family while you go to college?"

Relena mused over the suggestion for a few moments. "That would work but what about the college part, I don't even know if Frankie's going to college or not and…"

"How about we wait until we're back in Italy and are able to get in touch with Frankie before continuing to plan this entire 'back-up plan'?" Sage mumbled, adjusting in his seat that was tilted back only the slightest as he didn't want to disturb the person sleeping behind him.

The rest of the group concurred and began to fall asleep one by one until Relena was the only one still awake, writing in her spiral to finish the lyrics of her song. But nothing seemed to be coming to her, word-wise, and she didn't know why. It was like she had suddenly lost any of the inspiration that she had gotten earlier that evening.

"Lena, go to sleep, you need sleep like the rest of us," Adam grumbled, rolling onto his side and turning off the overhead light. Taking Relena's spiral, Adam put it away into the group's only carry-on.

Smiling, Relena fell against the seat and stared off into the darkness in Adam's direction.

"Adam?" she whispered.

"Mmh?"

"How well do you think we know each other?" she questioned.

There was a moment of silence. "Probably better than most people in our position should or would know each other. After all, you and I have been openly honest with each other in the past and even now. We've never had anything to hide from each other."

"Do you think, if things were different, that I would be in love with you rather than someone like Heero?" Relena inquired in a soft voice that Adam almost thought his sleepy brain had conjured the entire thing.

He shrugged, "Most likely. If I weren't a homosexual and if we weren't separated during the war, we probably would be very much in love with each other. But life has dealt us our cards and we must deal with them, even if they're crappy cards."

"You know, you two could have waited until we got home for this little heart-to-heart discussion," mumbled Draca, adjusting in her seat. "These seats suck."

Curling her face into the seat, Relena tried not to laugh. It figures that the moment she wanted to have a serious talk with Adam that someone would interrupt then make a random comment.

"Night Adam."

"Night Lena."

"Night Little John," Draca groaned.

* * *

The next day, having returned to Verona, Italy the 'For Rel' band members returned to the Noventa mansion and to their studies. During the most appropriate time distance would allow her, Relena called up Frankie.

Pacing up and down the room she shared with Lynn and Draca, Relena twirled the cord around her finger as she waited for someone to pick up the phone.

"Come on, come on, come on. Come on Frankie, I know you're there so answer the phone," Relena grumbled, falling onto her bed and staring up at the ceiling.

"Hello?"

Relena bolted up on her bed. "Hi, is Frankie there?"

"Speaking," replied the person on the other side of the phone.

"Great! Hey, it's Relena…"

Suddenly Frankie's deadpan voice made a 180 degree turn and was enthusiastic and peppy. "Oh hey, what's up? How are things going with the band? When do we get the next CD? Joey and Jason are bordering on obsession with that first CD of yours, and they're_ demanding_ a sequel disc."

In the background, Relena heard someone shout, "Damn right!"

"We're working on the next CD still. I still have to finish my song and Lynn still has her song to…polish up before we record it," Relena explained, a smile spreading from ear to ear on her face as Lynn and Draca entered the room. "We'll have you guys a CD by the time I come."

"You're coming here?" Frankie inquired, going through her memories to figure out if she knew that Relena was coming to Wisconsin or not. "When did we decide that you were coming here, because I seriously don't recall that conversation…?"

"We're having it right now," Relena interjected, grinning as her two roommates eavesdropped on the conversation.

There was a momentary pause on Frankie's end. "So, when do you plan to come over and I'm going to assumed that you're coming for some other reason than to have a family reunion."

Again, Relena found herself twirling the telephone cord. "Well, I'm not even certain that I'll be joining you in Wisconsin or not, you see it goes like this; I've been crossing paths with Heero and other Preventers recently and Draca suggested that I have a back-up plan in case I need a quick escape. So, Lynn suggested that I talk with you about the possibility of…"

"You want us to hide you out in our small town if things go sour in Italy? Awesome! We'd love to help you out!" declared Frankie as other voices joined hers.

Relena raised an eyebrow and looked down at her phone with a puzzled look. "Frankie," she began, "do you have me on speaker phone?"

"Yeah, sorry about that but the others wanted to hear all about the CD and your new plan," Frankie replied.

"What identity will you use?" asked someone in the background.

"Jason, let her finish her explanation," scolded a softer, female voice.

Trying to keep from laughing, Relena explained her plan to take on the identity of one of Frankie's relatives that wasn't her. There was a moment of silence as everyone tried to think of who Relena could impersonate.

"What about your cousin Robin, Frankie?" suggested Jason.

"Robin?" Relena echoed. "Is Robin a guy or girl?"

Frankie answered that her cousin Robin Shelly was sweet guy about their age who was almost the opposite of Frankie. Where Frankie was raised more as a boy, Robin was raised by mostly-perhaps only-female influence.

"Is he a crossdresser?" Relena teased.

"No, though I think he would be if he knew that his mother would massacre him if he did so," laughed Frankie. "I mean, if you decide to pretend to be Robin it might be a bit simple. Plus, Robin looks almost identical to me-amazing huh?-and if we get caught in a jam we can always switch roles so that you pretend to be me while I pretend to be Robin."

Lying back down on her bed, Relena mulled over the prospect of playing a possible duel role and doing some crossdressing. It was going to be a challenge but it seemed that it might be fun.

"Sounds like fun. That'll be a perfect back-up plan that we can refine if it ever comes down to me having to come to Wisconsin, okay?" approved Relena.

"Great, you'll give us a call if that time should ever come, right? I mean, we'll send someone over to get you so that you're not traveling alone," Robin promised.

"Yeah, I'll give you a call," agreed Relena. "Talk to you later, Frankie."

"Definitely!" concurred Frankie optimistically. "Peace out Lena."

"Bye." Hanging up the phone, Relena looked over at her roommates who stared at her anxiously over the tops of their text books which they had been pretending to study from. "Plan B is all set up."

* * *

It had been a few days after the fundraiser and Relena was beginning to think that she had escaped the Preventer's sights for good. There hadn't been any contact from any of the Preventers and no one had stopped by yet, so she seemed to be in the clear.

"Perhaps Sage can put in a fill there or something," suggested Draca as the group discussed the arrangement and notes for Lynn's song. The piano part was already written as well as the electric guitar part, so Relena took the time to write her music.

"No, this is meant to be a more ballad like song, not some sort of hard rock song with lots of drums," Lynn explained, biting her lower lip. She really didn't know what the song needed but it was missing something. "Salimar, can you play your part with us for a moment?"

Setting aside her pencil, Relena went over to the keyboard and waited for the count off.

"One…two…one, two, three, four," Sage counted, hitting beats two and four with the bass drum, and one and three with the high ride.

They played the song without the lyrics and it was starting to sound good, until…

"See, it's that chord right there! That damned chord just never sounds right. It's either you or I who has to play a different note, or Re…Salimar has to change a note or two in the chord," Adam pointed out.

Seeing that this was only going to lead to an argument, Relena glanced down at her watch and saw that it was time for tea. "Why don't we stop here for today and pick it up again tomorrow. I mean then this way Lynn can work out the kinks of the song, like that chord."

"I agree," Sage announced, standing up from behind the drum set. "We're all tired and us going at each others' throats over a chord isn't going to get us anywhere. So, let's call it day and come back to this tomorrow."

"Alright," grumbled Lynn and Adam, putting down their guitars on the stands and shutting off the amps.

"Well we got one thing accomplished," Draca declared, looking over Relena's spiral and staff pad. "Salimar almost has her song completely done and it's shaping up to be a very good song. Now, am I supposed to be the one singing the Japanese part and you doing the English?"

Turning off the keyboard and amp, Relena shrugged. "Sort of, it's actually a mixture of all three of us girls singing it. We each get a chance to shine in the song, but yeah; I get to sing the English part."

"Sweet!" Adam cheered, nudging Relena up the stairs as the band exited the basement one by one. "This is going to be one hell of a CD!"

Approaching the tea room the band paused for a second as they heard a familiar voice speaking with their landlord. Exchanging looks, Draca shrugged and continued into the room as the band found Sylvia Noventa sitting with her mother, having tea.

"Mother…!" Sylvia scolded.

"Afternoon Miss Noventa!" interjected Draca from the doorway.

"Good afternoon boys and girls," returned the mansion owner as she turned her head to group.

Sylvia followed her mother's gaze to find the 'For Rel' band in the doorway. In Relena's opinion, Sylvia's reaction was a perfect mixture of exasperation and annoyance when she saw who they were.

"Sylvia, I would like to introduce you to…" began Mrs. Noventa politely, recalling her manners as hostess.

"We all have met Mother, more than once I may add," hissed Sylvia as her voice began to ooze with spite while she glared at Draca.

Relena discreetly threw a questioning glance at Draca but her friend didn't acknowledge it. Apparently Draca must have said something at the fundraiser that had offended either Sylvia or Heero, causing the Vice Foreign Minister to be angered with the black-haired girl.

"I see…" nodded Mrs. Noventa, sensing the tension that was forming in the air. "Well, how did practice go?" Her pleasant voice and attitude had returned to contradict the tense atmosphere.

"It went well, Salimar almost has her song done, finally!" announced Adam as he pulled Relena into a headlock.

"Hey, Adam, let go of me!" she screamed while the others ignored them.

Mrs. Noventa clapped her hands in delight. She was always the band's first audience and reviewer, granted she was sometimes too nice to truly give an objective review. "Wonderful! You must have my daughter be the first to hear it!"

Relena frowned for a moment, she didn't really want Sylvia to hear their music first.

"It's okay Mother, I have heard all of their songs," claimed Sylvia, much to Relena's relief.

"Nah dudette, you heard the songs from our first CD," corrected Adam, causing Relena to hit him. He just had to go and say that when they had just been spared of having to perform for the Vice Foreign Minister.

"Yeah, and we're almost done writing the second CD!" Lynn added in and Relena wished she was in reaching distance of her friend to hit her as well.

Mrs. Noventa interjected, "Yes, it is a lovely CD and I get the first copy."

Standing up, much to everyone's utter amazement, Sylvia accused, "Mother, how can you house these people who have information on Ms. Relena Darlain and refuse to tell neither me nor Heero!"

Briefly, the band exchanged glances but it was Sage who spoke up first while Mrs. Noventa looked on with a confused expression. "Whoa Sylvia," he said in an attempt to calm her, "let's not go around making hasty accusations. Someone or some people might get hurt by them."

"Who's Heero?" Mrs. Noventa wondered aloud.

Apparently, Sylvia hadn't heard her mother, but unfortunately for her, Draca had so naturally she approached Mrs. Noventa.

"Accusations! It's the truth Sage, and you know it!" exclaimed Sylvia as the rest of the band just watched silently.

_Actually, no it's not,_ Relena corrected, _your mother didn't even know that any of them knew me. So of course she wasn't going to tell you or Heero. And apparently she didn't even know about Heero._

All of a sudden, in a moment of random spontaneous words, Mrs. Noventa announced, "My little girl is getting married!"

Everyone in the room veered their heads to the elder woman, each and every one of their faces held the same blank expression. Engaged? Married? Sylvia? To whom? When was this? Where was the ring?

"Congratulations on your engagement honey!" cheered the woman, standing up and giving her daughter a hug.

"M…Mother…I'm not…" Sylvia tried to protest.

"Though I wish you had me meet this man first before going and getting engaged behind my back," continued Mrs. Noventa, not hearing a word her daughter was saying.

"But I'm not…" Sylvia tried again.

"You must tell me all about me!" urged the older Noventa.

Relena rolled her eyes, there was a lot or little to say about Heero, depending on how much he cared to share and how many adjectives a person could use to describe the perfect soldier.

"We'll leave you two to do that," suggested Draca, returning to the band. The band scrambled out of the room and went up to their rooms, much to Relena's relief for she didn't want to be present as Sylvia waxed poetically about Heero Yuy.

"You okay?" Lynn inquired, placing a hand on Relena's shoulder.

"I'll be fine, thank you. Looks like I might have to use that plan B."

**Thank you to: Morrighan of Crimson and Sable, Ulitheal, Lynn-Minmay, and DogDemonK9. You four are some of the most devoted reviewers I have ever encountered. Thank you so much, it's people like you four that I keep updating for.**


	14. Heero's Coming

**It's My Life**

**Okay, as promised, here's ****Lena****'s side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

**I'm late again with this update. I was hoping to have this done before I went to ****Australia**** and ****New Zealand**** but, as you can see, I wasn't able to finish. Well, I'm back from overseas and I finally finished this chapter. Sorry for the wait.**

**Next update will be July 22nd or, at the latest, July 23rd.**

Hanging up the pay phone at the corner of the street, Relena sighed half in relief and half in resignation. Was there some sort of sign above her head that read, 'Follow her, she is Relena'? If so, she wished she could take it down because due to the fact that Heero was just getting a bit too close to her for comfort, despite the little cat and mouse game she was playing with him.

In all honesty she was scared. She was scared that one day Heero would put the pieces of the puzzle together, or get the sudden urge to review her files and find that her middle name was 'Salimar'. That was all that she needed, especially if it happened before she made it on her journey to the Americas and to her cousin.

"Damn it!" she cursed, lightly banging her head against the glass of the pay phone box.

"Lena, I'm appalled at your filthy language! Don't make me wash your mouth out with soap," Adam's voice scolded teasingly. The voice was followed by the physical appearance of Adam.

"Do I get to drink something before and after?" replied Relena, joining in on the little joke.

"Of course," he assured, "not. Remember that I'm the evil brother; Sage would let you have something to wash away the soapy taste but not me. _No_, never me, I would make you suffer through the taste."

Relena smiled, straightening up and linking arms with Adam before beginning the walk home. "You are just so cruel."

"So, the tickets are all set and paid for?" Adam inquired.

"They are. I leave in about four days but my tickets won't come until the day before I leave and by then I'll be out of the country so I need someone to pick up my tickets and take me to the train station," explained Relena.

Adam's eyes narrowed in confusion, he obviously felt that he had missed something vitally important. "Was there some sort of memo that I missed, why are you going out of the country?"

Hiding a grin, Relena answered, "Oh, I'm going to ask Quatre if he wants to go to Six Flags Great America in Illinois with me." Relena knew that Adam hadn't known this as he was the first person to be told.

As expected, her friend was surprised. "Really! When exactly did you decide this?" he continued to question, opening the gates to the Noventa household.

"Last night before I went to bed," she replied with a self-satisfied grin. "I want to see him as myself and not as Salimar Reigns, you know? I just want to be myself around him without the media, without the Preventers, and without Heero. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yeah," nodded Adam. "Granted I've never felt the same, _except_ for the time when I stole you away from that England house nearly six months ago and right now when I fought off the others so that I could talk to you alone. Other than that, I have no idea what you're talking about, but I _can_ sympathize."

Laughing a bit, Relena unlinked her arm from Adam's to open the kitchen door. "Well, I want to see him and I want him to know me beyond who I was before."

"Salimar!" greeted Draca, pulling Relena fully into the kitchen and down the hall to den. "She's back everyone! We can now begin cleaning this song."

Just as sudden as Draca had grabbed Relena did Lynn slide up next to her and capture the other arm. Having no understanding as to what was going on, Relena glanced at each of her friends with questioning eyes until she was seated at the open piano.

"Hey," panted Adam as he entered the room, obviously having run after Draca dragged Relena away, "what are you guys doing?"

"Well, we know that we said that we would wait until tomorrow to work out the kinks in my song, but while you were out Draca suggested to me a solution to the opening confliction of notes," explained Lynn, setting up the piano music for Relena.

Adam scoffed his doubts. "Really, what 'solution' is that?" He was honestly skeptic as he was positive that the problem lied in the notes Lynn had written and the solution in being to rewrite the music.

Draca grinned broadly, "We take out all other instruments in the beginning and leave only the piano. Then later on when the drums and such enter at a climax, also we decided to eliminate the electric guitar for keyboards, which will be playing some twinkling stuff while piano does the chords!"

During the explanation Draca began to talk faster and louder.

The other band members exchanged looks but it was Sage who clamped a hand over Draca's mouth. "Don't need to be so loud about it, even if you're excited," he stated.

"What do you think?" Lynn inquired to Relena.

Blinking her surprise away, Relena smiled, "I think it sounds great but how are the other supposed to know when to come in? Also, why has my part been changed?"

"Oh…"

"Well, since you're the only person playing we decided to make your part more…interesting. As to your first question, while you play and Lynn sings, she will indicate when a climax is and we'll take note of it as we follow along with our old music," Draca enlightened, unclamping Sage's hand. "Don't you ever touch me like that, again!"

"Sorry," Sage mumbled, going over to the recliner and sat down. "Say, aren't supposed to be somewhere else?"

As though recalling something else Draca slapped her forehead. "That's right! Thank you Sage. I'll see you guys later, I have to go make a call, a very important call," she informed the group as she left the den.

Slightly perplexed by Draca suddenness, Relena decided to think nothing of it and cracked her knuckles then rested her fingers on the keys. "Shall we?"

Coming out of her dumbfounded state, Lynn returned her attention to Relena and nodded.

"Here we go," Adam muttered in the background, taking a seat next to his twin.

Taking a deep breath, Relena looked at the music and began to play the new notes and chords. It had a beautiful sound to it, and Relena was thinking that if Lynn, or anyone else, suggested to go back to the old way, she would kill them. Not literally as that would be unbeneficial for her.

"Kitto kitto bokutachi wa. Ikiru hodo ni shitteyuku soshite. Soshite bokutachi wa. Ikiru hodo ni wasureteku. Hajimari ga aru mono ni wa. Itsu no hi ka owari mo aru koto. Iki toshi ikeru mono nara. Sono subete ni. Moshimo kono sekai ga shousha to haisha to no. Futatsu kiri ni wakareru nara. Aa boku wa haisha de ii. Itsu datte haisha de itai n da."

Out of the corner of her eye, Relena saw something or someone move in the doorway. Ready to brush it off as Draca, Relena snuck a glance at the door only to find that she would have been wrong. It was Sylvia who was in the doorway watching them.

_What is doing here? Is she spying on us or something? Maybe she wants to ask a few more questions about me, _Relena assumed, returning her eyes to the pages before, as it was different music.

"Kitto kitto bokutachi wa. Kanashii hodo ni utsukushiku. Yue ni yue ni bokutachi wa. Kanashii hodo ni kegareteku. Mamoru beki mono no tame ni. Kyou mo mata nanika o gisei ni. Iki toshi ikeru mono no tachi. Sono subete ga. Moshimo kono sekai ga shousha to haisha to no. Futatsu kiri ni wakareru nara. Aa boku wa haisha de ii. Itsu datte haisha de itai n da. Boku wa kimi ni nani o tsutaerareru darou. Konna chippoke de chisana boku de shika nai. Ima wa kore ijou hanasu no wa yametoku yo. Kotoba wa sou amari ni mo. Toki ni muryoku dakara."

Finishing the song with her eyes closed, as she had already memorized the ending since it had remained the same.

"Whoa!" cheered Sage, clapping hysterically.

"Beautiful piano piece as well," complimented Adam with a wide grin as he got up and gave a hug to Lynn, who returned the embrace.

Relena smiled at Adam's enthusiasm as she was certain that he had had major doubts about the idea of having a piano solo in the beginning. Releasing Lynn, Adam took the opportunity to hug Relena as well.

"This new CDs going to be great," he exclaimed with great confidence. "How's your song coming along Salimar?"

Noticing that Adam had left an arm draped around her neck from the hug, Relena patted it. She did so while saying, "Almost done, I just need to finish coming up with the piano part then we can try and put the entire thing together." It was true, the piano part was giving her some problems as she could hear each note in her mind but for some reason she just couldn't quite put on paper.

"May I hear what you have so far?" Sylvia inquired, catching everybody off guard as she entered the room.

Having momentarily forgotten that the new Vice Foreign Minister had been in the doorway, Relena quickly reclaimed her composure. "No," she answered, "I prefer playing any music with at least the piano part done. What may we do for you, Ms. Noventa?"

She almost felt like spitting out the name 'Ms. Noventa' but refrained from doing so. She didn't hate the woman, she couldn't, but Relena was jealous of her. There was no denying that Relena was envious of Sylvia for not necessarily being Heero's girlfriend but for having somehow captured a part of Heero that Relena had thought was always meant for her. Well, that was what Relena had thought until she was slapped, not literally, in the face with the truth.

"Well, that song of yours had caught my attention was all," answered Sylvia, moving to leave then seeming to recall something else she had to say. "How did you all make money to pay rent here?"

Sylvia was obviously talking about how the group was able to pay the first months of rent off from the beginning. Mrs. Noventa, sweet woman and a wonderful person but she had a nasty habit of talking too much, so she had obviously let it slip that the band had pre-paid the first three months of rent when they first came to Italy.

Sage, surprisingly, answered in an off-handed manner. "Easy Sylvia, Adam and I ran the roller rink, Draca worked at the community center with the elderly, Lynn worked at a nursing home, and then Salimar had a job at a residential home for Alzheimer people."

Relena bit back a smirk, it was a good lie, especially since Sage had, whether intentionally or not, made it so that all three of the girls worked with elderly people in some form or other. Personally Relena wouldn't have minded working with the elderly, beyond her charities and her periodic visits to nursing homes and hospitals.

"When we met up at the university we came up with the idea of forming a band," Sage continued, still lying through his teeth and it amazed Relena that he was doing it so easily. "It's been working so far, we get gigs at bars and hospitals for children. Of course we still got our normal jobs, got to pay rent and college money still."

"Oh…Interesting careers," nodded Sylvia. She was obviously impressed or taken back with the array of jobs that the group did together and individually.

"We never like to be the "normal" people," winked Adam.

"Then you beat the rest of us," joked Lynn. In return, Adam stuck out his tongue at the girl in a very childish manner.

"Meanie," pouted the bass player.

"Well, sorry to have disturbed you," apologized Sylvia as she left the room and closed the door behind her, much to Relena's liking.

Once out the door the group heard Sylvia's cell phone ring.

Waiting until thinking the coast was clear, Relena turned to Adam with a spreading grin. "That was bloody genius! Why can't I lie like that? Straight face and everything?" she praised but was quickly silenced by a 'sh' from Lynn.

Lynn was by the closed door with her ear pressed against the door to overhear what was being said by Sylvia. It was difficult however as Sylvia's words were muffled and not directed towards the door. She must have been keeping her voice low, even if it was unconsciously, causing it to be even more difficult to overhear one side of the conversation.

"Man…I can't hear a thing," whined Lynn, her shoulders slumping forward as she stood up in defeat. "Well this sucks."

"Who do you think she's talking to?" Sage asked, standing up with his hands in his pockets.

Giving him an "Are-you-serious" glare, Lynn answered condescendingly, "Heero Yuy, who else would she be talking with?"

"Her secretary to inform her of a meeting that she needs to attend or that she needs to pick up some papers to review…" offered Relena, having been through that before. Though, she never once could remember when a Preventer had to call her, beyond her brother and Lady Une.

"That's right, she _is_ the Vice Foreign Minister now and I don't recall Relena ever having much free time when she had the job. In fact, I don't think you ever had free time beyond those times at night and early morning when you called," Adam added thoughtfully.

Relena gave him a small smile, she remembered all too well how her days went. There was no time off for her, not even for Christmas as there was always some sort of party she would need to make an appearance at for publicity and out of politeness. At these parties there would only be a gift exchange between her and Duo as he was her date and escort, sometimes even with Hilde, if she wasn't too busy with her charge or occasionally when she was also in charge of Relena. However, much to Relena's disappointment, Heero would never come to the parties, he would take the day off or asked to be reassigned so he could escape the party.

_Well, it's not Heero's fault completely, I did advise and assure him that Duo was very capable of keeping me safe. Plus, it was Lady Une who assigned him those other jobs. Though I wonder…if there were times he did come and watched over me from the shadows again…or perhaps it was Sylvia,_ Relena thought.

It had never been a secret in the political world of who Sylvia Noventa was or that she was interested in taking a position in politics in the near future, Relena just never would have thought that position would be hers, Vice Foreign Minister. There was nothing malicious to be said about how Sylvia was handling the position: There had been no major conflictions, no declarations of war, no declarations of independence, and no slandering on television or in the newspapers. So far everything was right as rain.

"Earth to Salimar, hello..." Sage nudged, waving a hand in front of the dazed girl. "Come in Salimar, are you there? This is Houston, over."

Snapping out of her thoughts, Relena looked up at her friend in confusion. "Houston?" she repeated. "As in the town? What…?"

Laughing at her obvious misunderstanding, Sage shook his head, "Never mind, it's an old space joke that I picked up from some old books I got from my great-grandpa."

"Oh."

The door to the den opened quietly as Draca slipped inside and gently shut the door behind her. "Hey guys," she greeted in a low voice as though she was afraid of being overheard. Her expression was of indecisiveness, which was something Draca almost never was. "I don't know if this is good or if it'll really screw us over, but I just overheard Sylvia talking with Heero on her cell phone."

Lynn gave a look of smug triumph to Sage which caused the man to groan in annoyance and roll his eyes.

"What about it? They figure it out or something…?" A realization dawned upon Adam as he spoke. "Aw man…I…crap! I forgot that I had put dudette's ID bracelets into that box we left in England for Heero to find. What if he's checked out the bracelets and had put two and two together?"

A swift slap above the head put a stop to Adam's mild panic attack. "Chill out, I don't think he has figured that out yet," Draca sighed, "but Heero is on his way here. He'll be here by tomorrow so if we need to discuss anything now's the time to do it."

Everyone turned to Relena for any information. "If I think of anything I'll let you know, but for right now, let's just practice and be ourselves without a thought of tomorrow since we still have today. Okay?"

Nudging his brother aside, Adam stood by Relena and draped an arm over her shoulders. "That sounds like an excellent plan. Now, I was thinking, about that song, maybe I could play bass in the beginning to help _Salimar_ keep tempo…"

**Thank you to AnimeGuera and thanks to my very devoted readers/reviewers: Ulitheal, Lynn-Minmay, Morrighan, and DogDemonK9**.


	15. Realizations

**It's My Life**

**Okay, as promised, here's ****Lena****'s side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

**Yeah, I'm four days late. Better than last time but I need to get back on track. But I think I compensated for the waiting by making this a fairly long chapter, longer than my average chapters. Hopefully my next update will be August 11th or 12th, but I have marching band starting soon so that'll be taking up some more of my time. I'll still try though.**

Sitting at the dinner table after the mini practice in the den, Relena twisted her pasta into her spoon while stealing side glances at Draca and Lynn. She was waiting for one of them, or Sylvia, to bring up the fact that Heero was going to be arriving the next day. However, Draca and Lynn were avoiding her little glances and stared right at their food or glasses of tang.

However, Ms. Noventa, in her everlasting goodness, was the person to get the ball rolling on the subject, indirectly. She began by saying how there was a message for Sylvia about an emergency meeting with a Mr. Jesermen, counselor to the Italian representative. Apparently Mr. Jesermen was passing into town and had received report of Sylvia being in Verona and wished to have an informal meeting with her.

"What?" Sylvia coughed after having momentarily choked on her cup of tea. "Sorry but I thought you said the time was at 3 pm, meaning that I wouldn't get back until about 5 pm." Mrs. Noventa nodded. "I can't do that."

"Why?"

Everyone, in one way or another, stopped to hear what the Noventa daughter had to say. 'Everyone' included Relena, her friends, and Mrs. Noventa, to the disappointment of Relena the other college students renting rooms were out that evening, studying with friends or on a date.

Picking at her food, Sylvia bit her lower lip and glanced down at the 'For Rel' members, obviously conflicted in whether she should say anything about Heero coming or not.

Biting one corner of her mouth to keep from smiling, Relena quickly put a forkful of vegetables into her mouth and chewed it quietly, pretending to be indifferent to the mother-daughter conversation.

_Let's see how she's going to solve this. There's a real simple solution to this,_ Relena thought.

Swallowing hard, Sylvia answered, "I have a friend coming here tomorrow and I'm supposed to meet my friend at the airport at four. It's something that I can't miss."

The band members continued to eat in silence, pretending not to eavesdrop on the conversation. Well, most of the band was pretending not to eavesdrop while Adam openly showed his interest in the discussion. Until Lynn gave him a swift kick in the shin underneath the table, causing the bass player to hiss his pain.

"Oh, surely you can send a cab to pick up your friend and then greet your friend when you get back," suggested Mrs. Noventa, causing Relena grin behind her glass of tang that she was sipping from. "After all, your work as Vice Foreign Minister is far more important than anything else. I am certain that was where Ms. Darlian had gone wrong, she had let her selfish desires blind her from her duties to the people."

Clamping her mouth down on her fork, Relena felt her body begin to stiffen at the words and the food inside her mouth remained on the fork until she composed herself to slip the eating utensil out of her mouth.

Selfish? Her duties to the people? Had she failed the people once again by running away, for the second time? She had run away in the Sanc Kingdom, and now she had run away from her obligations as Vice Foreign Minister.

_Damn it! I am still that fifteen year old girl who can't fight out her battles only run from those stronger under the belief of protecting others, or in this case grasping my 'last chance' at a normal life,_ Relena thought angrily. _Idiot, I should have thought this through more thoroughly! I am selfish for doing this. I am…_

A foot tapped against her shin under the table causing her to look up to see Adam watching her with concern. Relena hated that look of concern her friend would give her as it made her feel guilty for making him worry when she should be the one to worry for him.

Forcing a smile, Relena resumed eating as though nothing had been said.

_It's not her fault, she is entitled to her opinions like everyone else,_ Relena told herself as the feeling of self-disappointment and failure crept into her. _Five more minutes then I can go to my room to do some homework._

Those five minutes were like a never-ending hell to her as she sat at the table silently, engaging into no conversation with anyone but listened to the others as the subject changed from politics to the prospect of Sylvia and Heero's wedding. The subject only proceeded to make Relena distance herself from any conversing.

_It's only natural that they would marry, eventually, but that doesn't sound at all like Heero. Heero hates to juggle priorities and right now, finding me is his priority, not deciding what color his tuxedo should be! If he even should decide to wear a tuxedo instead of his jeans and t-shirt._ Imaging Heero standing at a church alter in jeans and a dark green t-shirt while the other former gundam pilots were in elegant tuxedos caused Relena to silently giggle and smile.

Looking up Relena realized that Adam was watching her again, this time with a questioning expression as he wiped at his face. Giggling some more, Relena shook her head to reassure him that there wasn't any food on his face that had caused her to smile.

Once dinner was over, Relena excused herself to the girls' room using the fact that she had to study for her reasoning. Mrs. Noventa accepted that as a good reason and Sylvia didn't question her or send a suspicious glance.

Making it to the room with her dignity intact, Relena went to her bed which was closest to the window, pulled off her wig and tossed it aside without a care to the piece of hair. Sitting on the edge of the bed with her legs drawn up close to her while she stared out into the darkened sky.

"Selfish…" she muttered the word into the empty room. "I'm so selfish!"

Gripping the fabric of her jeans, Relena felt her face begin to twist into one of distorted, ugly pain that accompanied crying. She didn't want to cry, she never wished to cry yet she couldn't help the two tears that were leaving a trail of salt moisture down her cheeks. It wasn't until a droplet fell onto her hand that Relena let out a soft, broken cry.

An arm wrapped around her back and another came around in front of her, as though inviting her to cry onto one of her friends' shoulders. It was an invitation that Relena was going to refuse.

Letting go of her pants to grip the arm in front of her, Relena leaned into her friend's shoulder and continued to weep as quietly as she could while another set of hands rubbed her back in a circular motion to sooth her. It was comforting and no one said anything, just waited for the former politician to vent out all her suppressed emotions from dinner.

"It's okay, Relena, we're the only one's here," Draca's voice whispered.

"Yeah, just us girls who can still watch something like 'Seven Reasons' and cry hysterically at the end," Lynn's voice added, accompanied by a forehead being pressed against the back of Relena's shoulder.

There was a moment of silence before Lynn let out an ironic laugh. "You know what? We probably look like we're ready to have a threesome sexual experience," she pointed out, causing Relena to momentarily choke on her tears as she laughed aloud with Draca. "What? It's true."

"Only you could think of that at a time like this," Draca chuckled as Relena pulled away to wipe away traces of tears. "See what you did? You made Relena start to cry out of laughter."

Another fit of laughter hit Relena making her side hurt each time her body shook from the laughter. "Ow…" she groaned, clutching her side.

"Whoa, you okay there? You're not just suddenly dying on us, are you?" Draca inquired, pleased to know that Relena was no longer tearing. "Lynn, you killed her!"

"Oh well, I'll just say it was you," shrugged Lynn, backing up a bit as Relena fell off the bed. "Oh my giddy aunt! Lena, are you alright!"

Collecting herself on the floor, Relena nodded. "Thanks a lot you guys," she smiled before her lightened demeanor evaporated into serious contemplation. "It's true, what Mrs. Noventa said, I am really selfish. I abandoned my duties to the people for selfish reasons."

Sliding off the bed, Draca grabbed one of Relena's wrists and gave it a comforting squeeze. "Under normal circumstances I would disagree and try to persuade you to think otherwise while you just nodded blankly as my persuasion skills would have no affect on you. However, this time I will agree with you; you were selfish this time." Relena flinched a bit at the words. "As are we."

"Huh?" Relena looked up, bewildered. "What are you talking about?"

"We are just as, if not more, selfish than you. We had every opportunity known to take you home, return you to the life of politics, Adam could have refused to take you that night, we could have turned you away in France," she listed, "but we didn't. We kept you around not only because you wanted to stay here, but because we didn't want you to leave. You're our friend and we wanted you to stay with us, like when we were younger."

Lynn crawled off the bed and plopped onto the floor. "Besides, Mrs. Noventa was only the wife of a fantastic politician slash general. She, herself, isn't a politician, so although she might be able to comprehend the kind of work her husband did she doesn't understand the pressure a teenaged girl like yourself is put under in the political arena. You are being constantly judged, sized-up, and everyone looked to you for advice instead of coming to possible resolutions themselves. That dependability is something that the public doesn't get to see or hear about through the news, so no one can fully understand why you ran away," Lynn explained.

With another amused snort, Lynn added, "Although, what caused you to finally break was a bit clichéd and selfish in its very teenaged, school-girl heartbreak way."

With her free hand, Relena gave her friend a bit of a shove. "You're a fine one to talk. What about Justin Schneider? Or did you forget about that fiasco at the St. Gabriel Institution?"

The blond girl's face twisted into something of shock and horror. "You promised to never bring that up again!"

Suddenly Draca was in on the teasing until Lynn decided to point out the black haired girl's obvious attraction to Sage. It was fantastic for Relena as it made her put her self-hate, doubt, and recent realizations into the back of her mind for her to bring forth later in life; when she had time to reflect upon it.

_What would I ever do without them as friends?_ Relena thought with a grin while Lynn grabbed a nearby pillow to throw at Draca.

* * *

Some people can get work done with others hovering over their shoulder but Relena just couldn't, especially when that person doing the hovering was either Adam or Heero. As Heero normally didn't hover and wasn't around, Adam was the only person who made her quite incapable of working.

"Are you done yet?" he pouted again, continuing to pace behind Relena, stopping only to see her progress with the corrections she was making to the bass part.

"I would be if you stopped hovering over me and quit asking me if I was done," she sighed, erasing another mistake caused by Adam. Any mistakes that she had made within the last five minutes were all blamed on Adam for making her nervous and self-conscious.

"That means back off," translated Sage, grabbing his brother's collar and pulling him away from Relena to play a few rounds of sheep's head with him.

With a few moments of silence, that Relena took advantage of, the song and corrections were completed. "Done!" she announced, handing the sheet music back to Adam. "Let's try it again, from the top."

Everyone settled by their instruments, Sage at the drums clicking off the count down.

Not really paying too much attention to her part as much as she was listening intently to how the music sounded altogether, Relena almost missed her vocal entrance. It was sounding good, the bass line was fixed and was no longer sounding like a never-ending series of diminished or clashing chords.

Everything was sounding exactly as she had heard it in her head, perhaps a bit unpolished by everything was there. Every note, every chord, every crescendo or decrescendo; it was all there and it was unbelievable.

Sage had the improvised drum part down to an art, he could easily sense when the percussion was supposed to come out and when to go soft. Lynn had her guitar solo that she had co-written with Relena and the bass was no longer clashing with the piano anymore.

"Ai no subete ni deau made..." Relena sang as she ended the song with a little piano solo of her own and Draca accompanying her with a little wind chimes. "Well…?"

"Let's record it!" Adam grinned.

Sage rolled his eyes. "Hey genius, our recording gear is at the college, in case you forgot."

"Oh right…well, why don't we go through it one more time and fix any little glitches we might have?" the twin suggested, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment. A few groaned. "Come on, it's only one more time. _One more_!"

There was a beeping from Lynn's watch to signal that it was 5:30 pm and that it was dinner time. "We're going to be late for dinner, let's back up and tomorrow we can hopefully get an hour or, at the very least, an half hour to record the song," she stated. "Cool with everyone?"

"Yeah," the group nodded as everyone began to put their instruments away.

The only rules Mrs. Noventa had for the band when they practiced in the basement were: they practice softly, practice between the hours of 3 pm and 8 pm, that they put their instruments away when not in use, and weren't late for dinner.

Collecting the music, Relena put each sheet into her folder of music. "You guys go on up, I'll clean up down here and be a bit late," she offered.

"But…" Draca began to protest.

"Go, it's best if only one of us gets into any trouble for being late. So, get going, and save me a seat somewhere," she commanded gently. No one moved. "Get going, or I'll get mad."

Without waiting to be told a third time, the group escaped upstairs to the dinning room and Relena was left alone with a basement full of amps and chords that needed to be put away. Moving the amps up against the wall, Relena rolled up the cords and placed them on top of each amp. Going over the room with her eyes, she found that Adam's bass case was lying wide open.

"Adam…what am I going to do with you?" she muttered, closing the case and locking it up. "Well, that's about it. At least Lynn can put away her guitar and case without supervision."

Shaking her head, Relena jogged up the stairs, shut off the lights, and made her way to the dinning room. Stopping in front of a mirror in the hallway, she adjusted her wig a bit, checked her contacts to make certain that there was no trace of her blue eyes to be seen, and did a once over of her clothes to make certain that her underwear was peeking out of her jeans.

With a satisfied grin she continued to the dinning room, hearing Draca cheer, "Are we!"

_Must be talking about my song,_ sighed Relena.

"Really, we must hear it after dinner," Relena heard stated by Mrs. Noventa.

Sliding into the room, Relena apologized for her tardiness. "Sorry I'm late." As Mrs. Noventa sent her no scolding looks, Relena assumed that the landlady wasn't bothered by her lateness, much to Relena's relief.

Assessing the sitting situation, Relena took the only open seat that she found, right next to Lynn and someone else. She didn't really take notice who that someone else was as she really didn't care, as long as it wasn't Heero.

"We were just about to start without you dear, I knew you would not mind if we did so," explained Mrs. Noventa in her sweet, mirthless tone.

"Of course I wouldn't mind, who am I to keep others from eating their greens?" shrugged Relena, gently placing the napkin on her lap while glancing about the table for any sight of Heero. _Where is he?_ she wondered. _Oh no…_ With as much composure as she could summon, Relena turned to the person to her right. _I'm going to kill __Lynn__ for this, later of course._

Despite the lump in her throat, Relena was able to greet the Preventer. "Uh…'ello there-Heero right?-when did you turn up here?" _I hope my smile doesn't seem too forced,_ she thought absently.

"He just arrived tonight," Sylvia answered.

_Wow, I never knew,_ Relena thought while her mouth opened to mouth an "Oh…".

"Everyone, may I have your attention?" Mrs. Noventa commanded, silencing the table and halting everyone in his or hers eating. "I have an announcement to make."

_No…don't announce it. Please don't say anything, please. Let's keep it quiet tonight about our song, I really don't want to sing while Heero's right here next to me,_ Relena implored mentally.

"I would like you all to meet my daughter, Sylvia, and her fiancée, Heero Yuy."

Huh? _Uh?_ Relena tried not to let her bewilderment to show. Normally after finishing a song that they had been working on for a long time, Mrs. Noventa would have the band just sing it or a verse for the dinner company.

"Oh my God!" shrieked Cascata, jumping to her feet. "You're getting married! How exciting! When's the big day? Where do you plan on having it? Is it going to be a big wedding or a small wedding? Traditional or more modern? Oh my aunt is a wedding planner…"

Having been around many girls with a variety of personalities, Relena was still impressed by Cascata's ability to gradually, but unconsciously, start talking faster and louder when she got really excited or hyper.

Still, her fascination with Cascata's mannerisms couldn't compare to Relena's internal struggles with the second announcement of Heero and Sylvia's engagement, but this time it was stated officially and in front of everyone staying in the house. It was a shock to Relena's system still and she felt herself become ill at the thought of Heero being able to commit himself to someone he had been dating for…she didn't know how long.

_He could have been seeing her for years and I wouldn't have known it. He could have been in love with her the entire time that I have known him and I would never have thought of it. Perhaps they have been dating for years and he believes this to be the best next step…_

"Come on Cascata," Lynn assured, breaking into Relena's thoughts, "leave the couple alone for now. I'm certain that they will tell us all as soon as they are ready." She held out the silver cup of French dressing for someone to take. "Anyone for French?"

"Yeah, pass it here," nodded Joseph.

Joseph Bartelle was another man who Relena could find herself becoming close friends with, if she could find time when they could just hang out and get to know each other. He was intelligent, laidback, and very open-minded, although he had a tendency to get into debates about any little thing just because he knew that Cascata would argue back even if she knew she was going to lose.

"But the shin _is_ below the belt," Joseph pointed out.

"Yes, but the phrase 'below the belt' is usually not interoperated as _anything_ below the belt is fair game to being kicked. People take the phrase as meaning that…that…" she blushed while trying to gesture with her hands what she was trying to say. "That…that…"

Joseph sat back, thoroughly enjoying the girl's embarrassment.

"That part of the male antonym," Draca offered out of the corner of her mouth.

"Yes, thank you," agreed Cascata.

"So what," shrugged Joseph, "that doesn't mean that a person couldn't have meant the shin, the foot, or the thigh."

Laughing in between bits of food, Relena calmed down enough to catch a bit of the conversation at the other end of the table.

"I know, but it has just been so much more fun with these students here and each of them speaking to me, as well as each other, about their day. Thus far it has worked out perfectly for the meals that we have together," Mrs. Noventa giggled to her daughter. "You and Heero should join in the conversations, they are quite animated, I can assure you of that."

Relena lifted her napkin to her face to cover up her soft snort of doubt. _Heero willingly getting involved in a conversation with college students? Not likely,_ Relena thought, laying her napkin on her lap again.

Glancing at Heero out of the corner of her eye, Relena saw that he wore an expression of deep contemplation. Whatever he was pondering it must have been important to him as he didn't seem to realize that 'Salimar' was eyeing him at all.

Cocking her head to the side, Relena wondered, _Did he really propose to Sylvia? If he had, where is the ring? Is he even ready to commit his life to another person right now? I guess I'll find out sooner or later._

Turning to her salad with a sigh, Relena frowned for a moment. _Why couldn't it have been me that he was willing to open up to? To propose to?_

**Thank you to: Paws.on.scroll (thank you so much for reviewing every chapter in a row! Wow!), Morrighan of Crimson and Sable, darkfairy88, and DogDemonK9.**

**Yes, the next chapter is the one that a lot of people are looking forward to, the late night discussion between Heero and Relena (Salimar).**


	16. Tea and a Lemon Drop

**It's My Life**

**Okay, as promised, here's ****Lena****'s side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

**Okay, so I'm slightly late but I hadn't planned on spending the entire day on Friday at Six Flags Great ****America**** (Mommy pulled a fast one on me with that one). Sorry for my lateness. Next updation should be the 26th or 27th of this month.**

Maybe it was the recent chain of events, starting with Sylvia arriving at the Noventa household, but Relena was starting to doubt her own acting abilities and plans. Heero was just too close, and added with her lowering self-esteem it was making her really depressed.

It was getting to be a bit much as Relena exited the bathroom, drying off the tips of her wet hair with a towel and praying her glasses would clear up soon. She was in boxers, not something she normally would have worn but her pajama pants were all down in the washer. Accompanying the boxers was a Coke-a-Cola t-shirt that was a tad bit large as she had borrowed it from Adam; it was a bad week for laundry to be done.

Sitting cross legged on her bed with her music book in her lap, Relena opened up to the chapter she left off and pushed her glassed up. She still had two more chapters to read before the next class. Although she wasn't worried about finishing the reading, Relena knew that she still had some other chapters to read in her other classes and a few reports to type up. So, she wanted to be done with the reading portion as soon as possible.

Relena couldn't take it anymore, she wasn't getting any studying done (like she should have) due to her stressful, paranoid state of being. There was only one cure for it, tea, preferably with a lemon drop in it along with some marching music that Adam had burned onto a CD for her.

Amazingly enough, Adam and Sage both had been in their high school's marching band—Relena didn't even know those still existed—but more surprising was the fact that Adam was on colorguard. It always cracked Relena up to picture her friend in spandex while marching, sashaying, or 'jazz running' on the field with a flag or rifle. It was the spandex portion that was disturbingly hilarious to her.

So, when they first moved to Italy, the boys played their marching music from all four years of high school for the girls, and Relena had to admit that she loved the music. There was one song she particularly liked and it was a song from their 'circus show', which Relena never really could associate with marching band. Circus…marching band…it didn't seem to fit together to her, but she liked one of the circus songs just for the can-can portion, and kazoo solo.

Reaching for Lynn's portable CD player, Relena dug through the small stack of CDs for the marching music. Finding it, she popped it into the CD player and put the headphones on.

"Where're you going?" Draca asked, glancing up from her philosophy book as her friend got off her bed with the CD player in hand and pulling her wet hair under the moss green wig.

"Downstairs for some tea, I need to calm my nerves," Relena replied quietly, flipping her wig hair over her shoulder; she didn't want to disturb Lynn, who was sleeping peacefully. With a quick hand brush through and pressing play on the CD player, she went out the door and crept down the hallway to the stairs.

Glancing about for any witnesses, Relena bit her lower lip and seated herself onto the wide banister. One last look about confirmed that no one was out and about except for her, meaning that she could slide. So, she did.

Giving her body a fair push off, the former politician went sliding all the way to the bottom of the staircase. It had always been a secret wish of hers and now she had fulfilled it, but she still wanted to run back up the stairs just to do it one more time. The ride down had made her giddy, made her feel like a young child who had found a new way to be entertained.

Stifling her girlish giggles, Relena went into the kitchen, turned the light on, and skipped the other songs on the CD until she came to track seven, the song with the can-can bit. Bopping her head to the peppy music, Relena danced about the kitchen to get a clean mug and fill it with water from the faucet. She had no reservations against tap water, especially since she was going to be putting the water into the microwave for a while.

Balancing the mug of water in her hand as she pranced about the empty kitchen to the microwave, this was what she had needed. Already Relena was starting to feel better.

With the mug of water in the microwave and the kazoo solo being played, Relena punched in one minute and start. The microwave began to whir around, heating the mug of water.

Singing the kazoo solo out loud, Relena continued to dance her way towards the door as there was more room to do kicks for the can-can, which was coming up shortly. It was coming…almost there…now!

"Da! Da-da-da-da! Da. Da. Da-da-da-da! Da. Da. Da-da-da-da! Dadada!" she sang as she kicked her legs up as though she was an actually can-can girl.

She had been completely unaware of another person's presence in the kitchen until she almost kicked Heero in the groin. Out of reflex he covered he private area with his hands, something Relena would never have thought Heero to do. It was Heero Yuy, the perfect soldier, but the simple reflex reminded Relena that despite his soldier persona Heero was still human, and more importantly, a man.

Oh shi…I am so sorry, I honestly didn't know you were there!" she apologized in a high-pitched, squeaky voice as she took off her headphones. _Naturally he felt he had to protect _that _area, _she thought, trying to hold back a grin.

"Hn," was all Heero said back, relaxing his hands as the threat was no more.

Her heart was racing from the surprising entrance of Heero, until the microwave went off.

"AH!" Quite literally, Relena jumped back, putting a hand to her heart; the rate of that organ increased ten-fold at the sound of microwave. "Bloody hell!"

Sliding over to the microwave, Relena pulled out a mug of hot water then poured in three spoonfuls of tea into the liquid holder, stirred, and added in a lemon drop.

"Ah! There's nothing like a cup of hot tea and lemon drop," she moaned contently as the scent of the said tea and lemon drop wafted to her nose.

Heero didn't agree, but having known Heero for three years Relena knew that he was more or less for coffee-black mind you. Although, she had known him to indulge in tea every now and again, especially Wufei's tea which seemed to popular about the Preventers office. Relena had always found that quite funny since Wufei was just as or even a bit less distant than Heero.

Turning around, Relena looked up at Heero only to find him checking out her legs. Following his eyes to her legs, Relena realized that he wasn't 'checking her out' as in attraction but in curiosity. He was such a contradiction, in some ways he resisted most lustful traits that men seemed to share and yet he was capable of holding down a relationship with a member of the opposite sex; so, there had to be some attraction between him and Sylvia.

"Just shaved my legs and I have no idea how I got those bruises," she explained as she sipped her tea and sat on the counter. It was a privilege that Relena had never known until she had moved to Italy with her friends.

Evaluating her leg, Relena smirked a bit as she glanced up at Heero. "It's funny; I never used to shave my entire leg until I moved here and started wearing shorts. Before I would just shave my shins since I always wore pants, long skirts, or pantyhose, now that I wear shorts I shave my entire leg." She thought he would have liked to know, plus she hoped it might have been the start of conversation.

Obviously not, since he was staring at her like she mentally off balance.

"So what has brought you down to the kitchen? Couldn't sleep?" inquired Relena, starting to swing her legs like a young child.

"No," groaned Heero as he went to the fridge and pulled out a container of milk.

Having taken a sip of her tea, Relena watched Heero intently as he moved to the counter and pulled out a glass. "Oh," she began in a carefree tone, "I just kind of thought that since you're getting married and all that the stress would be…"

"We're not getting married!" interrupted Heero, slamming the container of milk on the counter that caused Relena's eyes to widen in surprise.

The outburst had shocked Relena, mostly because Heero was not one to ever lose his cool and to somehow openly express his frustrations in any sort of way. "Oh," she breathed, looking down at the mug of tea in her hands. "Sorry."

She felt guilty now. She had hit a nerve that she hadn't meant to and, unfortunately, that nerve had something to do with Sylvia.

_What could have happened?_ Relena wondered.

"For what?" demanded Heero, snapping the girl out of her thought line.

"For Sylvia and you not being able to work things out," answered Relena, hoping that she wasn't red with embarrassment.

"It's not my fault that she wants to get married and that her mother has it in her head that we're engaged when we never were engaged in the first place!" argued Heero, slamming the refrigerator closed.

_Huh? _"Whoa! Wait a minute!" interjected Relena, quite confused. _This is starting to get complicated._ "Sylvia wants to get married, her mom wants you two to marry, and you want what?" _He's not engaged to Sylvia?_

Facially, Heero remained the same as he always did, indifferent. His eyes, however, told of his internal conflictions as he thought carefully about his answer.

"I don't know."

Adjusting her glasses again, Relena asked, "Let me put it to you like this than, do you want to get married?"

If it had been anyone else Relena would have thought him lying, but as it was Heero, she knew that he was telling the truth. Problem was, that frightened her a bit, especially since Relena was realizing that this was the most Heero had opened up to her since the Eves' War.

_Kind of pathetic,_ she thought.

"I do not know yet! I just want to first find Relena, easy as that," he answered, drowning down the glass of milk. "What does it matter to you?"

Recalling the fact that Heero didn't know it was her, Relena, he was speaking to, 'Salimar' acted indifferent. "Nothing really, but obviously you needed to talk to someone. Relena was right when she said that you didn't often express your feelings openly to others," sighed Salimar taking a sip of her tea.

Heero was glaring at her with his trademark glare but Relena decided to ignore it; there was no way that she was going to break…well, not completely anyways. "Then again, she always did attract people to her, it was quite interesting too."

"When did she tell you this?" Heero questioned. He was starting up the interrogations again.

_What should I say? Will this somehow affect what the others might have told him?_ Relena wondered as panic began to rise. _Please, don't let him notice any inconsistencies, if there are any._

"About a month before she ran away," she shrugged. "Plus, she also mentioned how protective you could be of her, like she was labeled as your woman in a sort of romance book-ish style." Rambling, that's what she was starting to do, Relena could just feel it as the words slipped out of her mouth easily. "It was cute, but at least she didn't stay on the topic of you for too long, because then that would have been just too boring."

"Sounds like she told you a lot," pointed out Heero.

Even if his tone was matter-of-fact, Relena knew what he was implying and he was, unfortunately, right. However, he didn't need to know that.

"I'm not quite certain about that," she lied, "but I do know quite a bit about how she felt." _Hint, hint, _Relena thought, licking the lemon-tea flavor from her lips to keep from grinning in that teasing, 'I know something you don't know' manner.

"How serious is our relationship with Sylvia?" Relena inquired, wanting to both change the topic and to have some questions answered. "Must be pretty serious if she wants to get married. Much like the whole 'First I get cold then hot, think I'm on fire but I'm not. Oh what a pain I got, it must be love' sort of thing."

She was quoting a song and Relena knew it, but obviously Heero didn't, or if he did he didn't bother to show it. All he did was glare at her some more, which Relena found to be rather amusing than intimidating, but that could have been because there was quite a bit of distance between them.

"Not exactly."

"There's nothing I can do, all that I want is you. Look what I'm going through, it must be love. That's the kind right?" continued the girl.

"No."

"I fall like a sparrow and fly like a dove. You must be the dream I've been dreaming of. Oh what a feeling, it must be love. That one was it!" declared Relena. _Come on Heero, don't you feel anything similar to these sort of things?_

He didn't grunt but Relena could tell that he was trying to maintain his composure and keep from letting his annoyance show, which amused Relena even more. It was just so…human of him that Relena found it so fascinating even though she had always held the belief that he was more human than he let on.

"Oh wait, I might be thinking of Relena." The words flew out of her mouth without her thinking. _Insert foot into mouth, or bandana, anything. Just gag me already._ "Never mind then," she quickly added, trying to cover up her mistake.

"What exactly are you trying to get at?"

_He did not say that,_ Relena thought as she gave him a doubting look. _How can he not get my meaning? I mean, I went through three years of practically wearing a sign that read, 'I love you Heero'. What is he, blind!_

"What's your eyesight?" she asked.

"Twenty-twenty in both eyes," Heero simply said.

_Ha!_ she wanted to laugh aloud. _For having twenty-twenty eyesight he is fairly blind to not have noticed by feelings._

"What is yours?" he returned.

"My right is fifty-twenty and my left is seventy five-twenty. In case you were wondering about my glasses, I wear contacts during the day and at night I just wear my glasses," Relena winked playfully, she saw how he had noticed her glasses. "Though I like my glasses better than my contacts my glasses are just bothersome at times so I just stick with my contacts."

"Hn."

Great, now they were back to square one, with no conversation or point of interest. What should she say? Should she wait for him to speak? _Ha!_ she had to laugh, _Heero was never one to start a conversation, why would he start now?_

"Why are you in search of Relena?" questioned Relena, looking back down at her tea that was growing cold. "I mean you technically don't need her anymore since everything's all cool with the Earth and the colonies," she looked up at Heero intensely, "plus you have Sylvia as your Vice Foreign Minister. So what's the use in finding Relena?"

The former gundam pilot certainly took his sweet time answering her questions, but Relena wasn't about to let the conversation be dropped. Nor was she going to force a hurried answer from him either.

However, as the seconds ticked by on the clock so did Relena's patience, especially when she began to suspect that Heero was purposely being silent to avoid answering the question.

"So?" she spoke up, sipping her tea.

"It is none of your concern," Heero stated.

"Of course not, who am I but Relena's friend, I know nothing!" snorted Relena, feeling rather bitter as she jumped off the counter and put her empty mug into the sink to be washed. "Perhaps you should discontinue this little search for her until you find out why you're so desperate to find her."

The bit of advice was not just so that Heero would do some soul searching, but also so he would leave Relena be for a while. At least long enough so that she could put some distance between them.

"I'm not desperate," defended Heero.

"I'm sure you're not, you just can't get the nagging fact that she got away, out of your mind; even when you're with Sylvia, it's Relena who's secretly on your mind all the time," described Relena, even though she felt that she was detailing her emotions more than his. "You barely sleep, you only eat when told to or reminded, you forget about all your other jobs until you find a major lead to Relena. Am I right?"

Heero's eyes were hard as he replied, "No, she is not an obsession of mine. I can operate without knowing where or who Relena is with."

_Of course,_ her mind commented as a ghost of a smile tugged at her lips. _You don't ever need to worry so much about me. I guess he really doesn't care, emotionally, about me. He only wants to find me so that he can 'guarantee' peace, even if that's an illusion._

"If you say so," Relena shrugged as she brushed past Heero.

Ready to go back up to her room and turn in for the night, Relena stopped when another comeback formed at the tip of her tongue. "You know what," she asked, "you don't really deserve Relena, at least not her love."

He didn't, at least to everyone else Heero didn't deserve her love, that much Relena had gathered from talking with her friends. Whether he deserved it or not was never the issue, because he had been given it, freely, and he had earned it over the years. At least he had earned it in ways that were less romantic, like protecting her, listening to her, escorting her, or even holding the door open for her.

He didn't reply or, to Relena's surprise, react in anyway.

_He really never did love me as a person, only as a way to keep the peace… _"Good luck with Sylvia," Relena told him before leaving the kitchen.

Making her way to her room, Relena's composed demeanor gradually began to evaporate until she got into the room and closed the door. In the darkness of the room, as Draca had shut off the lights to go to sleep, Relena's calm exterior broke into a quivering pout.

Pulling off her wig, Relena felt her way to her bed and laid her wig on the dresser, along with her glasses. Lying on top of the covers, staring up at the darkened ceiling, Relena wiped away the tears that were forming at the corners of her eyes.

Determined not to dwell on the events or words exchanged that night, Relena slid underneath the covers and curled on to her side to stare out the window from the cracks of the curtains. She needed to concentrate on something, anything, but Heero and the conversation they just had.

"He never did love me. Did he even care?" she muttered aloud. "What was I to him? What am I to him?" Without an answer, Relena buried her face into her pillow. "Why can't he just leave me alone? My life would be so much easier without him here."

The door opened and was quietly closed. Someone moved about the beds until he or she came to Relena's bed.

Frozen out of fear, Relena didn't turn to see who it was until the person laid down next to her on top of the covers and began to comb through Relena's real hair. The hand was a bit too big to be that of a woman's so it had to be male.

"Rough night?" inquired Adam's voice.

"Yeah…" Relena answered, sighing in relief.

"Want to talk about it?" offered Adam, resting his head on Relena's other pillow while his hand continued to comb through her hair.

"No, but thank you."

They laid there for some odd minutes before Relena began to notice Adam's movements become more languid and feather light. "Adam, why don't you get under the covers so you don't freeze?" suggested Relena, laughing a bit.

"Mmh…'kay," the bass player murmured, lazily slipping under the covers. "Go to sleep Lena, you're going to need it I think."

"Yes sir." Yes, this was the remedy that Relena needed more than the tea and lemon drop. Adam, just being there and offering a listening ear should Relena decide to open up to him. She was feeling better, much better.

**Thank you to ****Lynn-Minmay and Morrighan of Crimson and Sable. You guys are great! Also, a thank you to the silent fans and to those loyal reviewers who hadn't gotten the chance to review the last chapter, it's all good people I know who you are. Thanks!**


	17. Uneasy Morning

**It's My Life**

**Okay, as promised, here's ****Lena****'s side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

**Yeah, I know I'm majorly late and I'm taking time away from my other Gundam Wing fan fic. I'm going to try to get the other updated before the deadline is up still. I'm not setting a goal anymore, only because I know for a fact that I can't guarantee that I'll make the deadline.**

It was warm, comforting warm. Why was it so warm and why was there something solid against her back? She didn't remember her bed being that far against the wall.

Not that she was complaining, it was just…strange, that's all, but rather comfortable…

"Mmh?" came a groan from behind her.

Eyes snapping open, Relena turned to find a dark skinned shoulder towering over her and that gave it away. _Adam…_

Everything from the night before came back to Relena, especially the discussion she had in the kitchen with a certain Heero Yuy. "First I get cold then hot, feel like I'm on fire but I'm not. Oh what a pain I got, it must be love…" she hummed, inching away from Adam. She didn't want to disturb him as it was...she glanced at her watch, 4:45 am.

_Wow, I haven't been up this early since I was Vice Foreign Minister,_ Relena smiled, pulling back the covers a bit so that she may slip out of the bed without waking Adam.

"Mmhg…" grunted Adam, rolling onto his other side. It made it even easier for Relena to climb out of bed without causing any disturbance.

"So, you are awake," Lynn's voice whispered from her bed. "I thought you were."

Rubbing her eyes a bit, Relena got out of bed and went to her twin-of-sorts' bed where she sat down beside her friend. "What gave it away?" inquired Relena, leaning her head against the wall.

"Your singing," answered Lynn. "What are you doing up so early, Lena? You should still be sleeping as you were the last to go to bed last night. Which makes me wonder, why Adam is in _your_ bed?"

"Good question. I think his 'Adam sense' went off when I came back up here from the kitchen, so he came in here to see if I wanted to talk about what happened. I refused so he just gave me quiet comfort until I realized that he was slowly falling asleep next to me and told him to get under the covers," explained Relena, glancing over at the boy in her bed.

Lynn laughed, "If I didn't know that he was gay I would have thought that you two were actually truly interested in each other, _that_ way."

Now it was Draca's turn to sit up in her bed and glare through the morning darkness at her two roommates, who were making such a ruckus with all of their jabbering. "Just why are you two up at such an ungodly hour?"

Rubbing her arms to keep warm, Relena replied, "I just woke up, restless sleep I guess, though Adam's presence was helpful."

Now all eyes turned to Lynn who was grateful for the dark as she blushed deeply and began to twirl her hair mindlessly. "Well…" she coughed nervously, "er-um, you see…" Relena and Draca continued to stare. "You know how last night I went to bed kind of early," nods from the others; "well, I thought it was just from lack of sleep or something. So, I went to bed just fine, then about fifteen minutes ago I wake up and…well, let's just say that I now know that my sleep is due to a personal problem."

For a moment Draca and Relena stared at Lynn in confusion, but gradually understanding dawned upon them. "When you say 'personal problem' do you mean something that can be slightly taken care of?"

"Last I looked, pads or tampons work just fine for a period," Lynn snapped then blushed even more and buried her head in her knees. "Sorry, I didn't mean to snap. Crap. This is going to be a long week."

"And we're on the receiving end," Draca returned.

Lynn retorted, "Your problem now. So, what did you go down to the kitchen for, Lena?"

"Tea and a lemon drop," Draca responded when Relena stiffened on the bed, "and apparently something else if Adam asked if you wanted to talk about it. So, I think the question is what happened down there?"

Taking a breath, Relena didn't really want to mentally relive the conversation but these were her friends, they were supportive and could potentially give Relena a different view on Heero's words. Releasing the breath, she began her tale of the kitchen discussion.

"That jerk!" Draca cried then quickly covered her mouth when she realized just how loud she had been. "That jerk," she repeated but in a loud whisper.

Smiling at the reaction that agreed so much with how she felt, Relena forgot that Lynn hadn't given much of a reaction except for one of pensive silence. Pensive silence was never good; it meant that Lynn was thinking the described conversation from Heero's point of view, to the best of her ability of course.

"Well," she began in a low voice, "you've got to see it from his point of view as well, Draca."

"No I don't."

"Just listen to me then. One, Heero did say that he wasn't marrying Sylvia so there could be a chance that he doesn't love her _that_ way. Two, he does want to find Relena so he must carry some feelings for you sweetie even if he believes that he doesn't. Three, he obviously had not understood or noticed the extent of your feelings for him in the past, Lena. So, can you fault him for belittling your feelings so?"

Relena was silent for a while. "I guess not," she eventually answered. Sitting up quickly, to avoid any further discussions on the topic, Relena jumped off the bed and went for her dresser. "What do you guys say that as we're already up we go work on the vocals for my song? So, you know, we know who is singing what part, when we should sing together, and we can decide what to do with the ending musically."

Groaning, Draca fell back into her pillow. "Can't this wait? Besides I thought we had figured out the vocals."

"Are you saying we don't need the practice? That we have it perfect?" Relena challenged as she pulled out a pair of blue jeans and a shirt of patchwork.

"No but…"

"I think Relena has the right idea," Lynn interjected, rolling off her bed to pick out her clothes. "While we're having confession time, Draca, why don't you inform our dear Relena what you sent Heero last night?"

The former politician raised an eyebrow as she turned toward Draca's bed. "What did you send him? Nothing something incriminating I hope."

Draca scoffed, "I'm not that much of a fool. I sent him an e-mail from you that I hope will get him off your back or at least make him reflect a bit. I seriously doubt that guy takes the time to actually think about what he feels or how he feels about things."

"Oh…well then, you probably did me justice, more justice than what I would have done," Relena smiled, putting on her wig and tucking her natural hair under the green mass. She wasn't mad with her friend, after all, Draca was only trying to help in a way she felt she could without jeopardizing Relena's identity before she went off to Wisconsin to live with her cousin Francis (Frankie) Shelly.

"See?" Draca challenged toward Lynn. "She's not upset about it!"

Rubbing her temples, Lynn sighed in resignation, "Fine, you were right, no need to rub it in. By the by Relena, have you called up Quatre yet for that Six Flags thing?"

"Called him yesterday, I'm heading out very early tomorrow morning, landing in O'Hara Airport in Illinois then heading back here on the 1:00 am flight. I have to pick up the tickets for going to Wisconsin," explained Relena as she dressed in the dark, she would take a shower later on when the rest of the household was awake.

"Why are you coming back here instead of going straight to Wisconsin from Six Flags?" Draca inquired as she got out of bed, reluctantly.

Grinning, Relena zipped up her jeans and reached for her wig, she would wear her glasses for the time being. "What fun would that be? Besides, I figured you guys might want to say 'good-bye' to me. Plus, it'd be too much trouble carrying around a bag or two of clothes and stuff in an amusement park."

Combing through her hair, Draca nodded at the reasoning. She was too tired and lazy to actually change out of her pajamas, unlike her two roommates, and she was still holding out hope of falling asleep again for another hour or two.

"What are you guys doing?" Adam's drowsy voice inquired from Relena's bed.

"Morning sunshine, we're going to go down to practice the vocals of my song for a while. You can go back to sleep," Relena smiled, leaning over her male friend and pulling the blanket up to his chin as though she were tucking in a child.

"But you guys are so loud," he whined.

Draca snorted as she opened the door, "And you are so annoying."

Adam only stuck his tongue out in protest at Draca when Relena had her back turned from standing up. The three girls exited and Adam was left to his own devices in Relena's bed, which consisted of falling back asleep for a short twenty minute nap.

Creeping down the stairs as quietly as possible, the girls heard the sounds of the cook entering through the kitchen door with the housekeeper as they passed the kitchen door. Making their way to the basement, Lynn opened the door slowly yet silently and allowing her two friends to enter before closing the door just as silently behind her.

"Alright," Relena said a little bit louder, clapping her hands together decisively, "let's get started."

* * *

It wasn't until about seven that the girls had any contact with someone from the upstairs world of the Noventa household. Mrs. Noventa opened the door to announce to the girls that breakfast was ready and that the cook had been sent home due to a cold.

"We're coming," Lynn called up the stairs then turned to the other girls with a sigh. "Let's get going."

With a sigh of defeat, Relena rose from her keyboard bench and followed her friends up the stairs to the dining room for breakfast. It was a light affair, as normal, as a small buffet had been laid out for everyone to pick and choose from.

Taking a seat Relena realized that there were three people absent from the table: Adam, Sage, and Heero. It struck her odd as Adam and Sage were normally among the first seated at the table for breakfast, unless they were working on music, but Heero… Well, from what Relena remembered of the Preventer, he was normally a light sleeper, early riser, and very prompt.

"Where are Adam and Sage?" Relena voiced her thoughts for two of the three missing persons.

Mrs. Noventa replied, "They're on their way down, they just had something to discuss with Mr. Yuy, if he was awake."

Biting her lower lip, Relena turned to her friends and they both had a look of discomfort about the information. There was no real reason for the boys to talk to Heero really…unless they thought of some reason that the girls were unaware of.

"I'm sure that Heero's awake by now, he never sleeps in very late, and I'm sure that he's hungry," Sylvia stated, getting up to perhaps head to the kitchen for a spare plate and tray.

"Why don't I take it up to him?" Draca volunteered, rising from her seat. "I'm certain that your mother has thousands of things to suggest to you about the wedding or the married life…"

That had done it. Draca knew just what to say to get Mrs. Noventa talking with her daughter, distracting her from the task of getting a tray ready to serve to Heero Yuy. Relena had almost blessed her friend aloud, there was a deeper motive to Draca's actions and they were simple: Figure out what the boys were talking to Heero about and make sure it's not incriminating.

Watching her friend go into the kitchen, Relena shared a secret smile with Lynn. She was relieved to know that Draca was going to discover what was going on, but Relena hoped that Draca wasn't going to be saying anything hostile toward Heero. Yes, he could be a jerk but Draca could be overly dramatic at times.

Coming from the kitchen with a tray and plate, Draca asked Sylvia what Heero might like to eat. Of course she asked in between questions from Mrs. Noventa. Then Draca picked up Heero's drink and set it on the tray before carrying it out of the room to the stairs with a balance worthy of the best waiter, male or female.

Sitting at the table for a few moments, picking at her food, Relena was happily relieved when the twin brothers entered the dinning room and took their seats. Adam settled down next to Relena and Sage between Draca's empty chair and Lynn. Yet, Relena was slightly uncomfortable; where was Draca? Why wasn't she down yet?

"Morning dudes and dudettes," greeted Adam in his normal cheeriness. Sage echoed his brother but he had used his own wording.

"Morning," Relena returned then added in a lower voice, "Did you enjoy your 'discussion' with Sylvia's boyfriend?"

Adam's patent smile faltered for a brief moment before he recalled himself. "Well, yes. If you don't mind me saying so, but Jackson had made a call you were meant to receive but Sage answered it instead. Jackson just wanted to let you know that the box of goodies at the old place in England had been found."

"So?" Relena shrugged as their conversation was kept in low voices so that no one else could hear them. "There was nothing incriminating left in the box…"

A guilty look crossed her friend's face. Something was wrong with what she had said, that was plain.

"What is it?" she hissed. What could possibly have gone wrong? Was her identity at stake? Did Heero know who she really was? No, that couldn't be it, at least not yet. That didn't mean, however, that he could find out soon enough.

"Well," began Adam, pushing his food about a bit, "you know those three identification bracelets you got some odd years back. One with your first name, second one with your middle name, and the last with your last name?"

Rather dumbly, Relena nodded as the picture began to become clear in her mind, but she wasn't positive that she had the right idea.

"Okay…"

"Sage and I kind of put those in the box, and since your noisy Preventer has the box, well…I think you get where I'm going with this," Adam concluded.

Relena nodded as she put a forkful of fruit in her mouth and chewed on it. Swallowing, she inquired, "Were you two talking with him to discover if he had noticed the bracelets and maybe sneak the bracelets into a pocket or two?"

Tapping his chin with the end of his fork, Adam stated thoughtfully, "You know, the thought never crossed my mind to steal back the damned things."

The former politician gapped at her friend.

"Though we were checking to make certain he hadn't checked them out, and apparently he hasn't. At least not yet," Adam assured, ignoring the girl's gapping expression. "I must say though, he seemed to have been quite interested in some pictures of us hanging out. Do you think he knows I'm gay?"

Not knowing if she should be laughing at the openness of the question or to be upset at her friends' lack of sense, Relena shook her head with a smile playing at her lips.

"No," she answered, "he probably hasn't thought too much about your sexuality, and if he has then he wouldn't care about it. He was a soldier, you have to remember."

"Oh?" Adam's eyebrows quirked upwards. Whoops, Relena had said something that had given Adam the wrong impression. "Man dudette, talk about open acceptance. Does this mean you know some hidden secret about Mr. Preventer Yuy that others don't?"

Blushing at the assumption, Relena gave her friend a sharp nudge with her elbow.

"Ow! Joking Salimar, joking," he cried, massaging his wounded arm. "You have boney elbows, you know."

"Salimar, do we get to hear your song today? We didn't get to hear it last night, so I was thinking you all might perform it today," Mrs. Noventa suggested.

Relena's insides compressed tightly and began doing slow flips, certainly no butterflies flapping about.

"Huh…" Relena pulled at the collar of her shirt as she glanced at Lynn for support. Her look-a-like just gave an unsupportive shrug, meaning that Relena was on her own. "Sure. Why not? We can perform it while doing the dishes after everyone's done eating."

"Wonderful!"

_Yeah, 'wonderful',_ Relena thought sarcastically as she popped a grape into her mouth.

**Thank you to: Morrighan of Crimson and Sable, Lynn-Minmay, DogDemonK9 (No, you didn't fail me. You are a great supporter so you can never fail me), and darkfairy88 (Thank you for reviewing and reading the story after being computer depraved for a few weeks). Thank you all. I'll try to get the next chapter up ASAP but I have school (senior year for me) and marching band (competitions are coming up shortly).**


	18. Chores, Songs, and Plans

**It's My Life**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the characters except for the OCs. Also, I don't own any of the songs.**

Dump in water, scrub clean, rinse, and dry. They were working as an assembly line, Sage and Draca carrying in the dirty dishes, Lynn removing any scrapes of food or storing it for later use, then Relena took the dirty dishes and washed then clean, and Adam did all the drying and putting the dishes back where they belonged. With the cook sick and refusing to cause other staff members trouble, the five students took it upon themselves to clean up breakfast. Although, anything the band did was not all work, mostly it was play or a time to sing.

Sage was the person to commence the singing.

"Down at an English fair,  
One evening I was there,  
When I heard a showman shouting  
Underneath the flare:"

Relena saw Lynn cringe as she dumped a plate of half eaten eggs, bacon, and fruit, especially when Adam began to sing with a false British accent,

"Hoi've got a lo-ve-ly bunch o' coconuts.  
There they are a-standin' in a row.  
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!"

He tabbed Relena's head and she tried to swipe him away with a soapy hand but he ignored her and continued to demonstrate the lyrics with his hands.

"Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist,  
That's what the showman said."

Sage made his return to singing with Adam adding his little flourishes after each line.

"I've got a lo-ve-ly bunch of coconuts

(They're lovely!)  
There they are a standing in a row.  
(One, two, three, four)  
Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head  
(And bigger)  
Give 'em a twist, a flick of the wrist, that's what the showman said."

Finally Draca shouted, "Stop," while giving the twins a scolding glare. "You both know how much I hate that song."

Relena threw Adam a glance from the corner of her eye, she did not even know the song title, where it was from, or how old it was. In short, she did not know the song at all, yet she thought of it as a funny song. It was a song she wanted to hear the rest.

"That was the first song that came to my head, so _excuse me_," Sage pouted. "You never let us have any real fun around here anymore, isn't that right Ms. Noventa?" He was seeking pity points from their landlady who stood by the kitchen island with her daughter, sipping a mug of steaming coffee.

With a complacent smile, Ms. Noventa decided to smooth over the situation with a song change. "Perhaps you girls could sing Salimar's song, you have never performed it for me before and now would be a perfect time."

The three girls traded looks before shrugging. It was not a bad idea and they were all together, plus they had been working on the song since the wee hours of the morning.

"Okay," Relena agreed, drying her hands with a towel and clearing her throat.

"Me me mimi," joked Lynn, coming by Relena along with Draca to form a horse-shoe shape like a do-wop group from an almost ancient era.

"Shut up," Draca nudged mirthlessly.

Relena snapped her fingers for tempo then began counting it off. "One…two…three…one…two…ready…go."

Draca and Lynn sang their verses well but it sounded off, forced almost. It felt like no one could relax until Relena ended the song while Adam was kneading her shoulders. Cutting off the note too soon, Relena rounded on her friend and slapped his hands away.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded, not angered but confused as to the motives for her friend's actions.

"Sorry dudette, it's just that you were so tense, actually all of you were so tense, that your voices were strained, almost ear bleeding," Adam explained. "I just thought that perhaps if I helped you to loosen up your voice would sound more pleasant."

Lynn stomped on his foot, causing Adam to start hopping about on one foot. "That was unnecessary."

"He's right though," Sage pointed out, "it was all very forced and you three need to relax, so relax and get into it this time, or I'll start singing "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" again." Draca brandished her fist. "Then start relaxin'." Sage had taken up the accent of someone from Jamaica.

Rolling her shoulders back and doing some stretches to relax her muscles while Lynn began to "head bang," as she had once referred to it as, and Draca briefly walked into the dinner room. Everyone froze and stared at the closed door until there was a distinct shaking of the house as though someone had jumped really hard or had done a cartwheel.

Returning to the kitchen, with a wide smile Draca with her hands innocently clasped behind her back. "So yeah, that was fun. I think I'm ready this time, how about you guys? Ready for one more go?"

Exchanging glances with Lynn, Relena could not help but grin at her friend's newfound peppiness along with Lynn, who was just as surprised by Draca's mood change. "Yeah, we're ready," Lynn answered.

"Let's try it again," Draca decided.

"Okay, from the top," agreed Sage, ticking off the numbers five through one on his fingers.

Draca started the song with her voice gentle and sweet, rather than her earlier voice that was hoarse from her clearing her throat and shaky with nerves.

"Moshimo ima subete ga umaku nante ikanai

Makesou ni naru toki datte

Hitomi wo tojireba kokoro kara

Sekai ga miete kuru."

While Draca sang, Relena turned to return to her dishes, something to make her relax and not see the audience they had. However, as she turned she noted that Heero had entered the kitchen in blue jeans and a light blue shirt. Seeing him look so laidback had taken Relena back to the point that she would have missed her entrance had Lynn not gave her either an accidental or intentional nudge with her foot.

"In this world when life can be so tough

You must be strong

Just believe in yourself and don't you fear

So open up your mind and close your eyes

Take another look from the other side."

Draca took the lead of the song again,

"Kodoku na yoru demo mayoi osoreru toki mo

Ima wa hitori demo kono ashi de doko made mo

Aruite ikeru hazu dakara."

Still doing the dishes and trying to ignore Heero's presence that would have been unsuccessful had Adam not slapped her across the bum with a towel, "accidentally."

"Just hold on tight hitomi tojita nara

Look inside yourself kagayaki ga aru kara

Yes, subete shinjite hoshii

You can take another look from the other side.

"Just hold on tight kokoro kujikete mo

Reach into your soul ashita ga mienakute mo

Yes, ikiru tsuyosa ga areba

You can take another look from the other side."

"Ai no subete ni deau made...," Draca sang.

Lynn took over singing the verses with a gentle voice that was not over-confident like Draca's but shy yet not hesitant. It was like a stage whisper.

"Kono sekai de ikinuite-iku tame no tsuyosa wo

Anata ni negatte-iru kara

Kokoro no tobira wo hiraitara

Nanika ga miete kuru."

"Just remember you are not alone

So don't you fear

Even though you're miles away

I'm by your side

So open up your mind and close your eyes

I'll be there for you no matter where you are."

"Hoshi no inochi nara nagai kedo itsu made mo

Onaji kono hibi ga kurikaesu wake ja nai

Ashita wa dare ni mo mienai."

"Just hold on tight hitomi tojita nara

Look inside yourself kodou kanjiru kara

Yes, "MIRAI" shinjite hoshii

You can take another look from the other side

"Just hold on tight kokoro kujikete mo

Reach into your soul ashita ga mienakute mo

Yes, chigau sekai ga atte

You can take another look from the other side."

"Ai no subete ni deaeru ya..."

It had been Lynn's solo before going into an air guitar solo that was supposed to take place at that time when they would perform the song.

"Just hold on tight hitomi tojita nara

Look inside yourself kodou kanjiru kara

Yes, "MIRAI" shinjite hoshii

You can take another look from the other side

"Just hold on tight kokoro kujikete mo

Reach into your soul ashita ga mienakute mo

Yes, chigau sekai ga atte

You can take another look from the other side."

"Ai no subete ni deau made..."

With a slight ritard, Relena concluded the song with her first and only Japanese solo with her eyes closed.

"Wonderfully done girls!" Relena heard Mrs. Noventa applaud and the former politician could feel a pleasurable blush beginning to flare in her ears. It was a fantastic comment and it meant a lot to Relena because it was _her_ song, her baby. However, realization soon set in that Mrs. Noventa was the _only _person praising their performance while Heero and Sylvia were practically silent. Silence was not good, it usually meant a disapproval of some sort.

Being the good friend, Adam noticed Relena's momentarily depressed expression but could not quite guess the cause. Whatever, the cause, he did not care, he just wanted her to be smile and be gay again. With a big grin on his face as he dried the dishes, Adam began to sing in scat, which soon had Relena and Lynn joining in, as he had hoped.

"Zappa-da zoopa-do zappa-da zappa-do-dee-ya," the trio sang in the form of question and answer, Adam doing the questioning and the girls answering.

It was exactly what Relena needed, especially when Adam got her to start sway a bit to their own tempo while her hands worked automatically on the dishes. This was something Relena could only expect from people like Adam, Lynn, Draca, and Sage. None of the Preventers or her war-time friends could easily change her moods and make her lighten up with a silly song.

During their singing, Relena heard the phone rang somewhere within the kitchen and it ceased all singing. Sage answered it and then he quickly pulled the phone away from his ear for everyone to hear someone yelling on the other line.

"Um…uh…Heero, I think it's for you," Sage told the ex-pilot as he hurriedly handed the cordless phone to Heero. Everyone watched with interest, especially Relena. It could not have been Shun-li since Relena hadn't called her yet about disappearing from her job and planning an escape route for Adam and the others when they get arrested.

Relena was no idiot, she knew Heero would find out that 'Salimar Reigns' was really Relena Salimar Darlian-Peacecraft, it was only a matter of time. Then when he found out she knew he would arrest her four friends and accomplices to try to get information out of them. Information like where her new whereabouts are. So, who was calling Heero and for what reason?

"I wonder what that is about," Lynn voiced, after Heero left the kitchen with the phone.

"No idea, I'll go find out," Sylvia volunteered.

Unconsciously, Relena tightly gripped the knife she was cleaning and scrubbed at it furiously. She almost stabbed Adam's hand when he tried to take the knife away from the former politician.

"Whoa there dudette, I know that I can be annoying but stabbing my hand is going just a wee bit too far to make me shut up," Adam pointed out, making Relena blush with shame. She just could not believe that she had almost stabbed one of her friends.

Muttering an apology, Relena handed the knife to Adam and picked up a spoon to wash instead, something that she could not unintentionally harm Adam with.

Laughing a bit to lighten the atmosphere, Adam dried the offending knife, "Don't sweat it girl." Leaning closer to her ear, Adam whispered, "I'm sure Sage or Draca is listening in on Heero's conversation or Heero and Sylvia's conversation to find out who had called soldier boy. Don't you worry about it honey, he doesn't know who you truly are yet."

"Let's hope he doesn't find out for a while still. I still want to spend a day with Quatre at Six Flags and then go stay with Frankie for a while." In fact, Relena was looking forward to spending time with her biological cousin who she almost never knew existed, but she was just as anxious to meet up with Quatre for the first time in over five months.

"You will, I'll make sure of that," promised Adam with a wink.

He was always so dependable and unbelievable, Relena just had to smile. "Thank you so much Adam."

* * *

True to Adam's word, Draca had indeed overheard the conversation between Sylvia and Heero, and was more than willing to report the good news of Heero's skipping town to go to Japan, upon Lady Une's orders. This news relieved Relena as Lynn drove her to the airport in the dead of an Italian night. She was on her way to meet Quatre in Illinois and with her was only a mini backpack to carry her cash and credit cards, and any other personal items she might need, like a change of clothes. 

"So you don't think the suspenders and tie are too much?" she asked Lynn. Normally Relena did not doubt her fashion sense but this was Quatre and she did not wish to scare him away too much with her newly acquired look.

Lynn was laughing and it made Relena feel even more sheepish about her clothes.

"I mean I could always go without them, but then my pants might fall a bit too low for my comfort level and show my underwear or worse, my ass crack," Relena muttered, trying to get her friend to stop laughing at her expense. It was not working quite as well as Relena had hoped as Lynn continued her bursts of laughter and giggles.

Feeling her cheeks heat in embarrassment Relena opened her to offer another suggestion. Why was Lynn laughing so much instead of giving her advice, or at the very least, a straight answer? This was so frustrating.

"Sorry Lena, I laugh in kindness, truly. You just make it sound like this is your first date with a guy by yourself, you're acting like a high school student with no experience," Lynn laughed. When she heard no agreement or a small chuckle from Relena, Lynn got nervous. "This isn't your first date, is it?"

Glancing at her friend from the corner of her eye, Lynn saw Relena lower her head so that her hair hid her blushing face from view. How Lynn knew that Relena was blushing was by the red tint growing on the former politician's ear.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry Lena I didn't think that…that is to say I thought…" This was not going well. "Aw damn it, I'm sorry. Plain and simple, I am so sorry for my presumptions." Lynn could have slammed her head against the stirring wheel, when had she become an insensitive jerk who bumbled over her words when trying to apologize? "I must be hanging around Sage too much if I can't make a simple apology without stumbling over myself."

She was making a bigger ass of herself, Lynn could just feel it. She could feel that and a blush staining her cheeks. How was she supposed to know that Relena had never gone out on a date with a guy by herself?

"You would have mentioned going on your first date if you had ever gone on one before this thing with Quatre, I'm so sorry that I forgot that you never mentioned dating before. I feel like an idiot," Lynn groaned, slamming her head against the steering wheel while stopped at a red light.

"Don't," Lynn heard Relena murmur. "Don't feel like an idiot, it's not your fault that I've never been on an actual date before. After all, my high school days were cut short and I sort of wasted what time I had." Looking up, Relena gave her friend a reassuring smile that she hoped would calm Lynn's nerves and make them drop the current subject.

The reassurance was not working, Lynn still felt bad about her presumption, but she did not wish to make an endless cycle of her feeling bad making Relena feel bad, then Relena's feeling bad making her feel bad. That sort of cycle was unproductive and would put a black mark on their practically impeccable friendship record.

"You'll look find Relena," Lynn stated sincerely. "Keep the suspenders and tie on and you'll look fine, perhaps even _sexy_, I daresay."

Relena's blush returned with more vigor. She had never thought herself sexy; attractive at best but never sexy. Being sexy, in Relena's mind, meant a person exuded a sense of sensuality in her body and clothes, something that Relena did not feel she possessed or coveted. Sexiness was a gift and curse, much like being the Vice Foreign Minister except not as large a stressor, so Relena felt she could do without being sexy.

"Thank you, but I think sexy is going too far," she voiced, a humble smile playing at her lips.

Lynn's eyebrow twitched a bit at Relena's modesty since it made her method to make Relena feel comfortable backfire. "Well, if nothing else, I think Quatre might find you good-looking in your new attire," she winked, but her friendly demeanor faded into a business-like seriousness. "So, the plan is to have Draca and I make any last minute revisions to your escape plan, and then you will call us tomorrow at some odd time for plan confirmations. _I_ will hopefully be dropping off your luggage at the airport, if not then Sage will, I trust his driving more than I trust Draca or even Adam's, no offense of course."

"Of course," Relena echoed, rolling her eyes at the obvious sardonic tone.

"So, Adam will be calling up your cousin to make sure someone will be there to pick you up at Mitchell Airport. Everyone else will stay at the Noventa residence in case your pursuer figures out who your doppelganger is and starts asking questions. That's it right?"

Relena surprised Lynn by shaking her head. "Actually, one of Francis' friends is in Verona right now visiting her mother, the details were literally fuzzy due to the static from the storm on Francis' side. Anyways, you will pick me up at the airport and take me to the train station. Now this is the variable part, depending if Heero is back and pursuing me then it is too risky for you to drive us to the airport, so Francis' friend's mother will do it. If Heero's not in hot pursuit then I would like you to drive this friend and me."

Mouth hanging open and eyes darting about, Lynn tried to absorb the information. "Wow," was her first comment, "my head is spinning." Personally, Relena could not blame her friend for finding the explanation confusing, she was confused by it at first as well until Francis had essentially drawn out the entire plan with stick figures and held it up to the vid-phone earlier that day.

"Okay," Lynn spoke up, "I'm still giving you the blasted bag, right? That part is the only thing not changing whatsoever?"

For a moment Relena did not know how to respond then she began laughing.

"What?" Lynn demanded with mirth. "I think that is a legitimate question."

Laughing even harder, Relena nodded in confirmation, "Yes, yes you are still giving me the 'blasted bag.' That part has not changed."

**I know some people may think this an odd place to leave the chapter but I don't feel that there is anything else I need to expand upon until later chapters and it wraps up the basic conversation between Lynn and Relena.**


	19. Six Flags Fun

**It's My Life**

**Okay, as promised, here's Lena**'**s side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

**Okay, I'm starting to notice that I have some reviewers who have obviously not read my other fics, "For Rel" and "It's My Life," which are basically Heero's side of this story. No one _has_ to read the other two stories but it's kind of helpful, despite my horrible grammar and spelling (my writing has done much growing since I finished the other stories).**

From the fitful plane rides from Italy to New York, from New York to Tennessee, and from Tennessee to O'Hara Airport, Relena hurriedly hitched a pre-ordered taxi to Six Flags Great America. In short, she was beat. Thankfully she had found time to change her clothes and get to the amusement park at one o'clock, the agreed time. Moving as quickly as she could to the entrance, Relena got her pre-paid ticket scanned; her bag searched, and passed the metal detector. Now, she was officially in the park at 1: 06 pm, six minutes late.

Standing at the foot of a man-made wishing-pond, Relena stared out at the vastness of the park while her bag began to slip off her shoulder. "Wow…" she breathed, mouth gaping open.

Six Flags Illinois was one of the few amusement parks still operating from generations that had long since turned to dust and blown away. There had been some debate in the recent past on whether the remaining amusement parks should be torn down or not, so Relena had decided to take advantage of visiting the Six Flags while it was still standing. So, when Quatre wanted to see her and she found that Six Flags was open during this time of year, she jumped at the opportunity to see the park.

The weather was warm for the time of year and the sun was shining brightly over Relena's head. Global warming over the last hundred plus years had done wonders to the seasons; late winders in the upper former United States were more like mid spring and late summer like mid autumn. Winters were relatively shorter and it was a rarity for snow to fall in large quantities or at all, plenty of rain but not much snow. Thus, amusement parks like Six Flags opened in early March rather than in May.

Snapping from her daze, Relena made her way to the far side of the carousel where she was to meet up with Quatre. She was nervous, if her visibly trembling hands suggested anything.

It was not long before she caught sight of Quatre, his blond hair and simple designer clothes stood out amongst the shorts, sandals, blacks, and pastel colors. She could remember a time not too long ago when he favored pastel colors as well, before the homosexual cracks had gone too far in the media. Now, he resisted the pastel purples and pinks for bold blues and reds.

Hanging back for a moment, the former Vice Foreign Minister surveyed her friend's attire; it was a red t-shirt with a navy vest over it, and khaki pants to conclude the ensemble. _I suppose I'll have to do some persuading to get him to go on a water ride,_ she decided, approaching the politician from behind with a mischievous smile growing on her features.

"Where could she be?" she heard him wonder aloud, straightening his shirt and vest. Now was her chance.

Relena pounced, covering Quatre's eyes with her hands. "Guess who?" she whispered tauntingly in his ear in lower voice.

"R…Relena?" he muttered, a smile spread across his features causing Relena to remove her hands and pout.

"You're no fun; you didn't even guess anyone else's name." She glanced at Quatre only to see that he had fallen into some trance as he took in her new look. Patiently she waited for him to snap back to reality.

"Oh well, I'm glad you could come. Especially since I know it probably took you forever to convince your bodyguards to let you come alone," smiled Relena, regaining Quatre's focus. She knew how protective the Maganac Corps members were of Quatre and how reluctant they were to even let the young politician do go out to do anything alone.

"Yeah, a four and a half hour long debate, but I finally talked them into letting me come," shrugged Quatre cheerfully. The response was just as Relena had suspected. Then Quatre's mood switched to one of relief. "It's good to see you again, Relena."

Quatre approached Relena obviously with the intent of giving her a hug, a form of affection she was more than willing to receive. So, she practically leapt at him, arms linking around his neck and his arms about her waist. She heard him expel a soft 'oof' upon impact. This she took as a good sign rather than him going 'ow.'

She was ecstatic to see her friend in public without a disguise and before his eyes. She felt she could be her naturally affectionate self with Quatre, without Heero sending exasperated glares her way or some paparazzi snapping photographs for a tabloid story. No, this was perfect. It was just her and him. God, she had missed Quatre so much.

"I've missed you too, Quatre," she murmured into his shoulder, then it suddenly dawned on her that he had grown a few inches compared to what she remembered of him. "You've grown a bit, haven't you?"

"A few inches," he granted her with a chuckle, releasing his hold. "Well, what would you like to do first?"

Relena pondered this, running through a list of rides she knew were there while a finger tapped unconsciously against her chin. Looking about her, Relena saw the carousel horses glistening over her shoulder. That was it!

"Well, since we're already by the carousel let's go on this one first." She grabbed Quatre's hand, dragging him into the line for the upper level of the carousel. Holding hands was second nature to Relena, like making an impromptu speech for any given subject. Apparently it was a family trait as she could remember Milliardo's White Fang speech from the war, very well spoken and made her proud except for the fact that he had been initiating war on the Earth.

It did not take long before they were sitting on two large horses on the upper level. Quatre was mounted on a white horse with false ruby gems while Relena was on a brown horse with false emerald studs, Relena's choice. It was her first time on a carousel, she did not know quite to expect from the ride.

"Aren't we a little old for these kinds of things?" Quatre inquired. Turning to her friend with false reigns in hand, Relena could sense her companion felt uncomfortable with being on a "children's ride."

"At heart I'm not, but if you want we can get off," offered Relena ready to dismount, she would not let him suffer discomfort on her account.

"No!" he assured quickly. "No, it's fine. I just haven't been on one of these in such a long time," he was saying while she stared dubiously at him for a moment before the ride began to spin.

"Really? How long ago was it?" asked Relena as her horse went up and Quatre's went down.

"It has been nearly ten years since I last rode on one of these," snorted Quatre noticing the children in front of him wave below to their parents.

"Quatre?" The young politician wore the reminiscent expression that Relena could familiarly identify with since she was certain people could see it in her eyes from time to time, especially when she thought of her father, Mr. Darlian. "Are you okay there, Quatre?" Relena called her voice full of concern since he did not reply to her first attention-getting attempt.

The representative nodded, "Of course, so when was your last time on one of these?"

A heat built in her cheeks, Relena was positive that she was visibly blushing. "Actually this is my first time."

Quatre's jaw dropped, literally, to Relena's surprise. Was it _that_ odd that she had never been on a carousel before that day? She decided that perhaps she ought to explain her situation.

"Father was often busy or elsewhere in the colonies or Earth, mother was not interested in carnivals plus she had back problems, and then Pagan has a history of a heart attack so he was not fit for the rides. So, instead of deciding to be a burden-as I thought of it as-I just choked up my tears and never went to the carnivals."

"Wow," was all Quatre said as the ride stopped.

"Oh well, at least now I get to have all these new experiences with one of my friends," she said off-handedly as Quatre helped her off the fake horse like the gentleman his sisters taught him to be.

"But you wish Heero was here instead of myself," pointed out Quatre.

Heero…that name caused an instant reaction and Relena knew it, and she knew Quatre probably had felt her reaction too. Heero, a simple, common name that had so much internal pain associated with it that Relena could not hear the name and not think of her once bodyguard now pursuer. Ironically, she had gotten what she wanted, for Heero to pursue her, but instead of the figurative action she got the literal action. Heero…

_No,_ she scolded herself, _no more pain. I'm with a dear friend who cares. I do not need Heero to enjoy this._

"Heero gets to have all these experiences with Vice Foreign Minister Sylvia Noventa. If I remember correctly, they are still an item," claimed Relena, grabbing Quatre's hand. "Besides, you are the one that wanted to see me even if it meant having to let me go again, and for that I am grateful for."

This seemed to almost crush Quatre and Relena visibly saw the look in his eyes for a second, instantly she felt the need to make amends or find a diversion to get away from the subject name "Heero Yuy" before she made an ass of herself any further. "Come on, you choose a ride," she suggested, leading the way off the carousel, down the stairs, and back into the crowds.

In the crowds, Quatre pulled out a map of the amusement park which Relena had neglected to pick-up in her lateness. _At least one of us is thinking ahead, _she mentally berated.

"How about the Fun Machine?" he suggested.

Having no idea what the ride was or what it did, Relena nodded, "Sounds good to me." She allowed Quatre to lead the way to the mystery ride that was meant to be "fun," or so the title suggested.

Quatre led her underneath a bridge and went through a mist of water before finding the ride tucked away in a corner and got into line. The line was relatively short but Relena estimated that she and Quatre were not going to be getting on the next time around.

"So what have you been doing the last five months?" asked Quatre, afterwards he wanted to kick himself, again, for that.

Momentarily taken aback by the question, Relena could see how Quatre was already giving himself a mental reprieve. She supposed he thought that he had somehow offended her. So, to desist the guilt trip she gave informed him of her actions during the past five months.

"Well, I have been going to college, working, and generally having a good time while enjoying every minute of my freedom." He seemed stunned that she had even told him exactly what she had been doing, honestly too. "It's okay to ask me that Quatre, I just won't go into too many details, but don't ask where I have been."

Relief washed over Quatre as he let out a sigh and brushed a hand over her hair. "I see that you cut your hair," he stated.

"Yeah, I wanted a change to go with my change of life." A blush was creeping to her cheeks again. "What do you think of the outfit? A bit radical?" she inquired spinning around. _Please say it's 'okay.'_

"It is a bit radical compared to what you used to wear, but it suits you," complimented the representative, making Relena's spirits rise. "What do you want to do after college?"

This was a topic Relena had been mulling over for a while, since she started filling out her college application to be precise. "Well, as a child I did want to be a doctor, then in fifth grade I wanted to be teacher, in seventh grade I wanted to be an archaeologist, and then in ninth grade, the last year I was in school, I wanted to be a trainer for horses. Now, I'm finding a passion for music, business, and literature, so I don't know," shrugged Relena moving with the line until the gate closed in front of her.

"You are lucky to have had such goals," commented Quatre.

"Aw, come on Quatre you have a goal too, to keep wars away from the colonies," Relena reassured, although she did not consider her indecisions as goals.

"And you had the goal of putting a stop to all wars between Earth and the colonies, which you succeeded at," he pointed out.

Relena winced, that was not correct. "That I didn't, that was all you gundam pilots, you guys put a stop to the war all I had been doing is keep any more wars from happening. Of course that led to almost all representatives looking to me for counsel, it was like they could not make a decision without me." The conversation was starting to become an argument of who was the cause behind ceasing further wars between Earth and the colonies. Thankfully, the ride had come to a stop and the operator opened the gate.

"Come on," urged Relena, running to a nearby car and then climbed inside, followed by Quatre who pulled down the bar and locked it.

"I guess this is a first for both of us," remarked Quatre, the topic of goals had seemingly vanished.

"That'll make this even more fun then," smirked Relena as the operator checked their car and then went back over to his control panel.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the fun machine, please keep your arms and legs inside the cars at all times and secure any personal items. Enjoy the ride," announced the operator as three honks were heard and then hissing from the center piece of the machine.

They spun clockwise slower for a bit as the three divisions of cars also were rotating. Soon the speed grew and Relena was slipping towards Quatre, until finally she slammed into him. Worried that she might be squishing him or making him uncomfortable, Relena tried to move back to her original spot. "Sorry," she apologized as the gravitational pull kept her flushed against Quatre's side.

"May as well stay here with me," grinned Quatre.

It was a simple, reasonable statement yet it seemed to have an underlining implication tagging along. Was there a second motive to Quatre's willingness to stay close? _No,_ Relena decided, _he thinks of me only as a friend. I've just been around Draca and the others long enough that I've picked up their double-guessing traits._ She silently laughed at her rash interpretation. _Quatre and I are just friends.

* * *

_

It had been a great day, the weather remained warm, the rides had been exciting, and the companion had been very agreeable. The only unfortunate thing to occur was near four o'clock when Relena had decided that she wanted to go on a water ride, at least once. She ignored the fact that she was wearing a white tank top, Quatre was wearing khaki pants, and the weather was gradually growing cooler. Now, at six o'clock at night, she and Quatre were suffering the consequences while walking to the exit damp and shivering.

Rubbing her arms, Relena apologized superfluously through chattering teeth. "S-sor-ry about th-this K-K-Quatre, I-I didn't th-think-k it would g-get this c-c-cold." She felt Quatre's hands join her hands in creating friction on her arms.

"Don't worry about it, I should have said something," Quatre shrugged, feeling the warmth he provided in Relena's arms slowly cease the chattering. Like a gentleman, Quatre had given Relena his vest to cover her modesty the moment they had departed the ride.

"Thanks for such a great day Quatre, but I am afraid that it is time we part," she stated, feeling apologetic for having to leave her friend when the night was still young the park very much alive with bright colors alighting the rides. However, she had to catch a flight back to Italy to pick up her bag and return to the former United States to stay with her cousin.

"Yeah," nodded Quatre, pulling Relena into a final hug. "You will call me again, won't you?" It sounded like a breathless plea.

"Of course I will," giggled Relena, drawing out of the embrace wondering why she would _not_ call him. "I will definitively be giving you a call soon. Maybe we'll do this again sometime." That was a promise more than a suggestion.

The idea seemed to meet the young politician's approval. "I would like that," he grinned widely. "You take care, Lena."

For the second time that day, Relena was taken back but this time it was because of a question but the endearment coming from her friend. It took her a moment to reply, "You too, Quatre, you too." She gave him a kiss on the cheek before going off towards the exit.

"Relena," Quatre called, causing her to spin around to him with a smile, "Heero really doesn't deserve Sylvia but he doesn't deserve you either!"

Relena's smile grew. Quatre was such a sweetheart at times and he had a talent for saying things that might have been painful coming from anyone else but coming from him it was a comfort. "Thanks Quatre, I'll keep that in mind."

With that she disappeared among the many people leaving the amusement park and she jumped into a taxi she had pre-ordered to pick her up at when Quatre and her had decided to take a lunch break. _Well, _she thought, watching the world outside the taxi pass her by, _I came, I saw Quatre, and I had a blast. Now, I must return to this game I am playing with Heero._

**Thank you to: Morrighan of Crimson and Sable, Pureevil230, AirStriker, and Inda for your support on chapter 18. Also, since I didn't do this for the previous chapter, thank you to: angel of darkness 507, PunkednDangerous, Lynn-Minmay, and Morrighan of Crimson and Sable (again). I'm sorry that I have not been updating for nearly a year but I'm updating now and I have the "For Rel" part of this fic almost finished. One more chapter than I will be into the "It's My Life" portion. Just stay with me and this fic will be concluded, hopefully before I graduation from high school in June.**


	20. Departure

**It's My Life**

**Okay, as promised, here's Lena**'**s side of 'For Rel' and 'Get Rel'.**

**This is the end of the "For Rel" section, I will now be going into the "Get Rel" portion. I'm finally getting back into writing fan fiction.**

At the airport in New York, waiting for the hour long layover to come to a close, Relena grabbed the closest vid-phone to her terminal. She could have used a regular phone for this call as it was less costly, but she wanted to see her friends one last time. One right, two rings, three rings…

"You're late!" Draca accused, startling Relena to the point that she almost dropped the phone. She had never been so sternly scolded by Draca for tardiness in the past; in fact, Draca was often the one to _encourage_ Relena to exercise her right to be tardy at times. "Tardiness does not exist. It only exists to those who cannot appreciate someone taking her time to do things right does the word 'tardiness' exist," Draca had reasoned with the nuns at the St. Gabriel Institute each time she was late for class, it got her detention more often than not.

"I was worried that your hound dog had sniffed you out and caught you," added Draca, her tone and expression softening to one of relief. "Don't scare me like that ever again." Relena smiled gently and nodded, she had not meant to cause alarm but at least her friend was not angry with her, just concerned.

Sage gently nudged Draca from the screen with an apologetic expression. "Sorry 'bout that, we've been talking…and you see…" he cleared his throat, "we don't want you to go."

Relena was speechless despite the fact that Sage had said the last part rather slowly to prevent her from not understanding what he was saying. There were several responses Relena could have made like, "too bad," but these people were her consistently devoted friends who had been ethereally supportive, understanding, and loving. She was being selfish and they had encouraged her to be so when dealing with her personal life and goals for the last eight months. Yet, they wanted her safe, they wanted her…to stay with them and she wanted to stay with them too.

"I don't want to go Sage, but…I have to. Well, I don't really have to but I kind of need to unless I want to get caught," Relena muttered, feeling the stinging of tears at the corners of her eyes.

Now it was Sage's turn to be nudged aside by Adam. "Quit it Sage, you're going to make her cry," the twin scolded then turned to Relena with a twisted forlorn-happy smile that made Relena want to cry even more. "Everything's ready for you."

"Thank you, is she going to be there to pick me up?" Relena asked through the static. "She" meaning Lynn, who, for whatever reason, was not present to speak with Relena on the vid-phone.

"Yeah, she'll be there to pick you up and drop you off at the train station," nodded Adam with his "Adam grin" on his face. Now, he was back to normal, or as normal as was for Adam Witt.

Sage interjected, "Relena, you don't _have_ to do _this_! Come on, you could talk to Heero and the others and convince them to at least let you finish the semester of college."

Tempting, the idea was tempting but frightening all at one. The fear suppressed the temptation making Relena shake her head. "No, he wouldn't understand my desire to go to school. Besides, this new college I'm going to Jo-Jo set me up, plus my record at college will be deleted as though I never existed." Heero was not the only person who thought ahead and he could blame himself for Relena's thoroughness as she had seen him do the same, or at least _knew_ what he had done the same.

"Okay," Sage sighed defeated. The former Vice Foreign Minister felt the urge to somehow reach out and hug her friend, assure him that she was doing the right thing, but alas, technology had yet to reach the point where communication from opposite sides of earth and space could be physical and not just visual and verbal.

Draca elbowed the boys out of her way and got as close as she could the vid-screen. "Hey girl, I'm really going to miss you."

"I'll be missing you too, all of you. Perhaps we should do lunch sometime," suggested Relena with a hopeful smile, the dreadful tears were back.

"Do lunch? Sure, I can just hop on a plane and be right over, right?" Draca joked sarcastically.

"Smart mouth," she commented. It was true though, as long as Relena was going to stay in the United States she would not be able to see her friends whenever she wanted like in Italy.

"I know I'm a smart mouth, but seriously how would we do lunch?" inquired Draca. There was a new meaning to her words, Relena realized, Draca was asking, "When are we going to see each other you with gone?"

"We could set up a monthly day when we all do lunch together, the entire, _entire_ group," proposed Relena, emphasizing "entire" to include her cousin's friends. "How does that sound to you all?"

Draca looked back at the boys with a pleading expression. "It's cool with us," Adam answered, standing beside Draca so he was Relena's sight and then Sage joined them.

"Flight I-85 to Verona, Italy is now boarding rows…"

"That's my flight. I have to go guys. I love you guys," Relena told them while being reluctant to hang up the phone.

"Before you go Relena we just want to say," Adam began as he glanced at Draca and Sage.

All at once they took a deep breath and began singing, "Show me the way to go home, I'm tired and wanna go to bed. I had a little drink about an hour ago, and it went right to my head. No matter where I roam. O'r land or sea or foam, you'll always hear me singin' this song. Show me the way to go home."

Laughter filled the feed and Relena wiped a tear from her eye. They were all truly the greatest friends a girl like herself could have asked for. "Okay guys, I seriously have to go. Bye," waved Relena, moving to hang up.

"We love you, girl!" she heard Draca yelled before the feed was cut.

"I love you guys too."

Relena did not sleep on the flight from New York to Italy, she was nervous. Part of her knew that Heero was getting closer to the truth or even worse, already knew that Salimar Reigns was a lie. Even if he did know, she prayed that she would make it back to Verona and to the train station before Heero could stop her. It was all a matter of timing, something every actress had to have in a performance.

"The actors are in place and the lights have risen again. Scene seven is ready to be performed," Relena muttered under her breathe as she watched the dark world known as Verona enlarge with the plane's descent.

Upon landing, Relena was relieved to be released from the confines of the plane and ran, literally, through the airport with her single bag and into Lynn outside the doors. "Ow."

"There you are, Lena, let's get going girl," Lynn smiled gently, leading the former Vice Foreign Minister to the van and opening the passenger door.

"I thought you couldn't park here," Relena commented, getting into the van with her bag planted between her feet as Lynn closed the door. Skipping in front of the vehicle, Lynn opened the driver door and slid into the seat, closing the door behind her.

Buckling up, Lynn answered, "I'm not parked," she shifted the van from "park" to "drive."

Relena rolled her eyes, "I see…"

"It's a precaution, the van's still running," Lynn nodded, checking her blind spots for a place to pull out into traffic with her blinker on. "Jo-jo's daughter, Joey, is picking you up at the train station to go to the United States. There's a photo of her in the glove compartment for you to take. Jo-jo gave it to me to give to you, she really admires you, you know, and she sends her best wishes for your future." She gave a small laugh. "As a side note she says, keep up the music and writing, you may make a great writer either in composing harmonies or fiction yet."

Having met the college director five times before entering college then almost everyday on campus, Relena knew Jo-jo Alley fairly well and that she had two children whose pictures she kept in a frame in her office. In fact Relena was certain Hilde would have noticed it when she went for "Salimar Reigns'" background information. Jo-jo Alley was a woman of flexible morals and if a person did not think outside the lines then it was hard to grasp her meanings or motives for actions, it was a trait Relena found out during their first meeting. Jo-jo was the only person Relena felt saw through her disguise as 'Salimar Reigns' but never questioned Relena about it.

Opening the compartment, Relena found the picture; Joey Alley was a girl with lengthy black hair, brilliant green eyes hidden behind black glasses, and a playful smirk playing on her lips. "She looks nice," the former politician commented, pocketing the picture.

"Your cousin says she's fun and is your escort," Lynn added as she pulled out of her parking space and into traffic. "There's a gift for you by your feet."

Bending down Relena found a box wrapped in newspaper comics which she wanted to read but it was too dark to read the strips. "I love the wrapping." Grabbing the present, she sat back and looked at Lynn with a reprimanding scowl. She was touched yet she felt there was no need for the gift. "Lynn…"

"Don't get your knickers in a twist," Lynn smiled, her voice starting to choke, "it's from all of us and we decided that you will not be able to escape as a blond girl or with green hair, so…just open the blasted box and see for yourself."

Without objection or hesitation, Relena tore at the covering feeling a tinge of guilt at ruining such perfect comics but she quickly dismissed the feeling as she opened the lid. Inside laid a wig made of gently curled red hair. It was not fiery red or a golden-red, just red like a fresh apple. On top laid two contact cases, one labeled 'B' and the other 'Bl.' 'B' obviously representing 'brown' and 'Bl' meaning 'blue.'

"Since you did not wear your glasses or take your contacts to Illinois with you--shame on you for that--I took the liberty of packing them. Your glasses should be in your mini-backpack and those contacts with the blue abbreviation are meant to further hide you from the Preventers at the train station," Lynn explained. "After all, your stalker, pretty-boy crush is supposed to be the best soldier and I would think he takes in the minor details."

Relena did not bother to point out that he seemed to have recently been lacking in that department for the last few months. Instead she simply said, "Thank you." Somehow that 'thank you' seemed so inadequate to Relena in summing up her gratitude to her friends. Hugging the sealed box close, she felt tears brimming the corners of her eyes.

Lynn noticed the hunched posture her friend had assumed and nudged the girl. "Hey, don't start shedding any tears on my. You know I hate emotional good-byes and if you start crying I'll start crying then I won't be able to see where I'm driving and we'll get into a car crash."

Laughing, Relena nodded and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I really wish I did not need to go," she muttered.

There was a sign from Lynn that seemed to echo those sentiments but still acknowledge the reality behind the decision. "We all do Lena, but you have been playing a dangerous game with Heero. He could have figured everything out if he had decided to read the bracelets in his possession. Knowing this you continued to hide under his nose, a risky choice. You've played your cards well so far and you have the lead, now you're going to try your luck elsewhere before folding your hand and cashing in your winnings. It's a risk but you are willing to take it Lena, for that I commend you and wish you luck."

Pulling the van to the front of the train station, Lynn shifted the vehicle into 'park' and opened her visor mirror to pull out the blank envelope with Relena's ticket in it, Relena already had her passport. "Here you are a one-way to freedom. In the envelope I've included a fake passport in case you need to pretend you're a redhead and where you're to meet Joey."

Relena smiled, that was her friend always thinking of the minor details and the what-ifs. "Thanks Lynn," she muttered, reaching for the envelope. Instead of just taking the envelope, Relena lunged at her friend and hugged her.

Momentarily taken back, Lynn gapped at her friend's actions before she relaxed and patted Relena's back, feeling a few tears soak through her jacket. "Hey," she reprimanded, "what did I say about crying?" The runaway ignored her and began to shake. "Lena, don't cry hon, you know I can't stand to see you in tears, happy or sad. You should have a smile, a dreamy look, contemplative expression, anything rather than tears in your eyes."

"You guys are the best," Lynn vaguely heard Relena mumbled into her shoulder.

"So are you," returned Lynn, kissing Lena's cheek. "Now go, before you make me decide to kidnap you just to keep you from leaving."

Choking out a laugh, Relena released her hold and gathered her gift and carryon on bag. Opening the door, she stepped out and closed the door, then opened the back door; on the floor laid Relena's duffle bag, packed for another departure. Duffle bag slung over her shoulder, Relena closed the door and turned to the entrance.

Part of her wanted to jump back in the van and turn herself in, cash in her chips, but her mind told her to go with no more "good-byes" lest she give in to her id.

Entering the train station, Relena searched out the nearest bathroom as she figured that she had at best a half an hour before Heero and any other Preventer raided the station in hopes of catching her, so to prevent that from happening she was going to put on her new wig and her new contacts in. There was a restroom in the corner and Relena made a b-line for it.

Inside she deposited her bag by the farthest sink and took out her new wig and the contact sets. Disposing the box in a trashcan, it would be found eventually but by then it will not matter, Relena adjusted her hair to make it fit under the fake mass. Pulling the wig on with a practiced motion, she moved the curls from her eyes and adjusted the natural hair so none of it outshined the false strands. Opening the blue contact case, Relena swiftly and efficiently scooped up the contacts and placed each one in her eyes, one at a time.

Blinking a few times, the runaway saw her new image for the first time; a gently curled redhead with bright Persian blue eyes just like Heero's but different. Heero's eyes could be the window to his emotions at times when his guard was down but at other times they were vacant, like a doll's.

The image struck a nerve with Relena so violently that she snapped her head away, grabbed her bags and contact cases, and then left the bathroom. Standing amongst the crowd she opened the envelope Lynn had given her and shifted through for the not telling her where she was to meet Joey. She found it, a bench beneath the sign for the one o'clock train leaving for Paris.

_Perfect_, she thought, pulling out her ID and putting it in her back pocket for easy access in case she was asked about it. Everything in order, Relena moved with the crowd toward her destination, passing through baggage checks and ticket scan with flying colors. Finding the bench was easy but as the former Vice Foreign Minister sat there watching people come and go, to and fro, her mind turned to a more unwanted topic; Heero…

_He seems…not happy but not miserable with Sylvia,_ she noted while thinking back at the time at Giorgio's bar and in the Noventa household. There had been moments during his short stay when the two were "alone" that there would be a brief kiss, touch, or when they would hold hands. _Perhaps he is content with her, perhaps he loves her._ The thought hurt but Relena could not decipher if it hurt because she felt guilty for being jealous that Heero found some semblance of love and normalcy with Sylvia, or if she was hurt because she felt betrayed. _He deserves to be loved as much I deserve freedom from him._

It seemed to be a fair trade.

Resolute in her resolve, Relena opened her bag, ripping out a piece of paper and grabbing a pen from the fabric confines. Using the bench as a desk, Relena began to write. She paused once in a while to search her mind for the correct word to express her thoughts. It was most certainly not the most eloquent writing she ever did but it expressed her wishes, and that was all that counted.

Her work of expression done, Relena noticed that a girl sat on the bench across the crowds. The fact that someone sat there was not what caught Relena's attention; it was the fact that the girl had the moss green hair color Relena had been wearing for the last few weeks as Salimar Reigns. This fact made Relena gnaw at her lower lip as her brain began to finalize how to get this bit of writing to the right person or persons.

Emptying the envelope Lynn had given her the former politician folded her paper and stuffed it into the envelope not even bothering to seal it. With an elegant hand and with more flourish than necessary, Relena wrote two little words on the envelope and set it aside. Now, she just had to wait for the most opportune moment to arrive, preferably before the Preventers began to storm the station.

"Track 205 to Paris has now entered the station and is boarding. Due to the late arrival, the train will be departing in five minutes. We apologize for the inconvenience," the computer system announced.

No reaction from the girl and Relena felt any hopes that she had riding on a simple coincidence begin to fade to dust. Oh well, perhaps her little letter will not be leaving her side but she was still not going to allow herself to be caught.

A few minutes after the announcement the girl looked up from her book, checked her watch, and tilted her head as she tried to recall something. In distress she began to chew at her bottom lip and glance around the station for something or someone…

She gathered her one bag luggage and purse, tucking her book under an arm, and stood up. Instead of joining the crowd like Relena thought, the girl approached her with a shy yet bewildered expression that would pull the sympathy strings of just about anyone. However, as her sympathy strings were being pulled Relena's paranoia side of her mind pointed out that this girl might be a Preventer in disguise…

_They wouldn't know where I am, Adam and the others wouldn't tell until _ _Lynn__ got back,_ she reminded herself but the paranoid feeling persisted so she chose to remain on her guard with the girl even if she turned out to be an innocent.

"Ano…" The woman spoke Japanese, Relena almost groaned as her brain supplied the connection between the Japanese language and a certain Heero Yuy. "Can you tell me if the 205 train to Paris has arrived yet?"

Almost blinded by her good fortune Relena almost forgot to answer the woman. "Yes, it arrived a few minutes ago and it will be leaving soon so you had better hurry if you want to catch it," she replied in fluent Japanese. Most people had difficulties changing languages but for Relena it was as easy as breathing. It came hand in hand with traveling with Mr. Darlian and her former career as Vice Foreign Minister.

"Arigato," smiled the woman, taking off toward the train that was nearby.

Relena's inner mind cheered at her good fortune and took her opportunity, possibly her only opportunity, to scurry across the floor to the empty bench and stuff the envelope between two planks of wood, leaving half of the envelope sticking out. Not wanting to somehow be caught, Relena hurried back to her bench and picked up her book, holding back a river of giggles.

"Relena!"

Tensing, Relena sneaked a glance in the direction she heard Heero's voice call from. She did not have to look far for he zipped by her toward the train the girl had just boarded but he had the door closed in his face right when he got to the car. He stared inside the car and for a moment Relena was tempted to stand and reveal herself, but any thought of reveal vanished as Duo and Hilde appeared on the scene and scanned the area.

"Excuse me, miss," Duo said, approaching Relena, "but did you happen to see a girl with green hair or maybe blond hair that had boarded that train?"

Putting on an Italian accent, which sounded more like a foreigner who had spent months in the country and caught grasp of some of the accent, Relena replied, "There was one sitting on that bench there but she just left on the train just now." She indicated to the moving train that Heero was following after, banging on the door futilely.

"That guy," Hilde sighed, while Duo went over to inspect the bench. Now, it was guaranteed that the envelope would get to Heero. "Thank you very much ma'am, could I perchance have your name?"

She had to think fast, her fake ID was in her bag and she could not look at the ID for her "own name," yet she could not remember the name to save her life. "Tory Joan." It was a fabrication that, to Relena, was not only ridiculous but transparent so it came to her as a surprise when Hilde wrote the name down and accepted that as the truth.

No more questions were asked as Hilde noticed Heero was coming back without a sign of disappointment or defeat, he was just as determined and stoic as ever.

Watching the Preventers huddle together, Relena returned to her "reading" and observed the group from over the top of her book while opening a bag of beef jerky with one hand. Duo said something then handed Heero the envelope and Relena held her breath, unconsciously. Seconds ticked by loudly in the runaway's ear as she watched the Preventer open the envelope and read over the letter.

The answer did not come from a verbal response, it came from Heero crumbling the letter. Finally she could breathe again and nibble at a bit of beef jerky. A tired smile graced her lips, he was not going to give up like she had suggested apparently; on one hand it made her exasperated but on the other hand she felt excited that this game of cat and mouse was still on. She loved games and this game was still on… She could hardly wait for the second level of the game to begin, but this time she was going to need some new ideas and new helpers.

Another person approached her.

"Are you ready to go now, Relena?" asked the girl.

A quick glance up was all Relena needed to know that this was the girl she had been waiting for, Josephina Alley. Her escort was here. "Quite so Joey, lead the way," nodded the redhead, putting her book away. "The game is still on." An idea struck her. "You wouldn't happen to know a talented group of individuals who are willing to play a game of pretend and to help a girl out?"

The new girl lifted an eyebrow as she grabbed Relena's duffle bag and a mischievous glint appeared in her eyes. "I might know a few friends willing to play."

"Good. That's very good…for me, anyway."

**Thank you to: Liz for reviewing both chapters 18 and 19 at the same time, Pureevil230, Morrighan of Crimson and Sable, and AirStriker. You guys are great and I'm hoping to update sooner next time so you're not waiting for months between chapters.**


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